Der dritte Grad

Greece 1974 - during the brutal era of the military government, and innocent tourist manager (Ugo Tognazzi) is accused of being a member of the illegal resistance movement. Two secret agents (Michel Piccoli and Mario Adorf) are bringing the innocent victim to Athens. During their trip, their car breaks down, and they're stopping in a small village. From now on, everybody is fighting against each other, and a psychological cat-and mouse-play is starting...

Filmed shorty after the end of the military terror regime in Greece, "Der dritte Grad" is less a political thriller in the wake of Watergate and Co. but rather a well-done psycho thriller about terror, angst, obedience, torture and sheer naked aggression. The plot focuses on the three men, all brilliantly played by the Italian-German cast of Ugnazzi, Piccoli and Adorf, and the fast-pacing action of the second half of this movie and the surprising end makes this movie an outstanding European "Politthriller", directed by German Peter Fleischmann. If you've got the rare occasion to watch this film, do it!

Here's a weird one: In a dystopian Greece, a travel agent witnesses a man avoid secret police by jumping to his death. The next day while sitting in a café, someone steps on the travel agent's foot and the next thing you know he's being arrested for reason's unknown...

The travel agent, Georgis, is grilled by the 'director' about why he was in the café and the man he was meeting, and is sent cross country with two agents, the 'investigator', and the 'manager' (Mario Adorf). These three head on out for a road trip, with Georgis protesting his innocence, and the agents trying to cover up the fact that the guy who stood on his toe has been killed by accident and cannot prove his innocence.

Although it just kind of takes place in seventies Europe, the air of distrust and paranoia amongst everyone is conveyed pretty well, and nothing is quite as it seems. The agent's car breaks down, Adorf has to go off on business. It seems that every opportunity to escape is presented to Georgis on purpose, but why? Just when you think you've got it figured out, the film takes another twist in a different direction.

It's almost a three character-play, with Adorf being the rough but loyal agent, and the investigator possibly being full of doubts (he's the guy who basically let the guy jump to his death at the start of the film). It's not exactly action packed, but does pick up as the film continues, and it's worth watching to the end. I thought so anyway.

This is a strange and typical French political drama from the seventies, the terrific seventies, far more politically incorrect decade than the fifties, sixties, eighties and nineties. The seventies - post 68 - that also gave us: LE COMPLOT, LA QUESTION, LES AVEUX LES PLUS DOUX; not the same plot but the same kind of genre on the content but maybe not on the form. Such directors like Dino Risi, or Marco Bellochio - I don't even speak of Costa Gavras (for the first part, at least) - could have made such film too. You have many absurd and funny situations that will please any audience. Ugo Tognazzi and Piccoli are awesome together.