Missing - Porté disparu

Simply,Costa-Gavras's American movies (this one,Betrayed(1987) and "music box" (1990))are better than his French works(compartiments tueurs(1965),Z(1969),l'aveu(1970),etc).Whatever you may think of "Z",the art of Costa -Gavras is efficient but a bit cold and deprived of emotion.This is a perfect dissection of a political assassination,complete with investigation and suspense.But the characters are reduced to stereotypes,particularly when they are played by overrated Yves Montand.

In his American works,while continuing his militant way,Costa-Gavras puts men and women made of flesh and blood on the screen:Jack Lemmon,who made us laugh so many times in Billy Wilder's masterpieces("some like it hot" "kiss me stupid" "the apartment",the highly underrated "Avanti"),shines in his dramatic part;his portrayal of an all-American man,proud of his country,who cannot really understand the evolution of the new generations but who knows that he's got only one son,whom he might never see again,is mind-boggling:his tired and sad face,always seeming on the verge of tears ,mainly in the second half of the movie which contains two classic scenes:

-The first one takes place in the stadium,where the prisoners are gathered;he's given a mike ,but a lump comes to his throat and he hands it to Sissi Spacek -who plays (with talent) the missing son's wife -;In the giant stadium,no echoes ,even when Lemmon,in a desperate call,asks his son to come home.

-The second one takes place in some kind of morgue,where dead bodies pile up.The wife and the father really go to hell,in this almost unbearable scene.

The Putsch (Costa-Gavras takes the American intervention for granted whereas there's nothing that proves it)takes a back seat to the desperate couple's plight.

Costa-Gavras has not completely forsaken France though:the book Spacek and Shea are reading is none other than Saint-Exupery's "le petit prince".

There's a particularly chilling scene in this movie. It comes near the end in a confrontation between Charles Horman (Jack Lemmon) and staff members of the American ambassador in post-coup Chile, 1973. To this point the staff has sounded polished and professional in their concern for Horman's missing son, an apparent casualty of the coup. But in this scene the devious reality of American policy begins to emerge from behind the velvet glove, and Horman's passage from credulous liberal to disillusioned skeptic is complete. In a nutshell, the scene symbolizes one of the great divides in American political life, between the polished propaganda face our government presents to the people and the grim realities that face covers over, especially in dealing with Third World countries like Chile. Horman represents the frustration many feel in trying to deal with a cosmetic facade supported by both major political parties, when beneath it crouches the murderous policies of imperial rule.The real question the film poses is what Horman will do upon returning home.

The film itself remains a gripping eyeopener from first to last. Costa-Gravas is especially good at recreating the abject terror of fascist rule: where long hair is forbidden and women are forced back into skirts, where people are present one minute and gone the next, where a democratically elected government is present one minute and gone the next, and where a Henry Kissinger can do the behind-the-scenes dirty work and be honored for it (not in the movie, but true nevertheless). The acting is first-rate, and a tour-de-force for Lemmon in particular. Ditto, the often overlooked Charles Cioffi who puts the real chill in the confrontation scene. Two complaints: the arch symbolism of the riderless white horse conflicts with Costa-Gravas's documentary approach, and why, oh why, did they have to make Horman's son so cuddly. The audience gets the point without spooning on the sugar. Anyhow, this remains a fine piece of revelatory film-making and retains as much relevancy for today's audience as it did twenty years ago.

Jack Lemmon portrays a father searching for his son, whom he think has fallen in with a group of naive liberal thinkers. By the end of the movie, Lemmon's character realizes he had fallen in with a group of naive conservative thinkers. This movie portrays the odyssey of the father searching for a missing son in an unstable foreign country. He believes in the powers of the American embassy to protect all Americans. He believes everyone who keeps his nose clean is left alone. He believes in the power of the American people. The movie allows us to feel with him with its careful directing, and to feel for the other characters close to him and his son. We don't choose sides in the movie. We just hold back the tears, knowing that sadness looms, and obviously the father knows sadness looms, too. The religious beliefs, occupation, and history of the father are played down and unimportant. We are left to realize how unimportant it all is when looking for a loved one whom we feel is not in good fortune. A lot of movies claim to change a character in their film, but they're always left to resort to extreme exposition, usually even making the character proclaim that he or she has changed, and more often than not it isn't believable. This movie makes you believe. It is the best example ever of a character making a change throughout a movie.

The film begins in Chile at the time of the coup that ended the Allende government. When Pinochet and the rightists came to power, huge numbers of folks simply disappeared or were executed outright. Anyone who could have posed a problem to the new government simply were eliminated--by the thousands. One of these was Charles Horman--an American journalist who was just too outspoken to be ignored by the regime. Although you see him as the film begins, soon he disappears and his wife and probable widow (Sissy Spacek) is beside herself trying to find him. Soon, Horman's conservative father (Jack Lemmon) arrives and has faith that the US embassy personnel with help him in the search. Eventually, however, it becomes obvious that the personnel are NOT there to help and probably are complicit in the disappearance. What are they to do? They're in a hostile land with few, if any, allies.

This film won an Oscar for Best Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Actor (Jack Lemmon), Best Actress (Sissy Spacek) and Best Picture. I am surprised that "Gandhi" won the Best Picture award that year--especially since the film was, in many ways, quite inaccurate historically (I am a history teacher--trust me on this one). "Missing" was a better film--as were "The Verdict", "Tootsie" and "ET" (in my semi-humble opinion). I wonder if perhaps the film's politics doomed it to lose--though considering Hollywood generally DOES run left, this may not be the case.

I am a reasonably conservative American, though I feel ashamed when I see films like "Missing" (as well as Costa-Garvas' other famous film, "Z"). While I am glad that the US had been traditionally anti-communist, this single-minded approach to international communism appears VERY misguided in hindsight. In too many cases, in order to combat this, the US government sponsored repressive and evil regimes--when they should have been pushing for self-determination and freedom. No matter how you try to excuse this, situations like the ones in "Missing" are simply inexcusable and the film should be seen by everyone--not just those on the left politically. Why? Because, the story in this case is TRUE--the situation involving the Pinochet regime in Chile was just plain evil--and should NOT be forgotten or ignored. History should be understood and lessons learned from them...or they'll be repeated. Well worth seeing and very well made overall.

I saw 'Missing' for the first time the other night. I was 12 when 'Missing' was released in theaters, too young to understand about the cold war paranoia and political brinksmanship of the CIA and the American government at work in Chile during the 1970's. Unlike other 80's political thrillers like "Under Fire", "Salvador" and "Target", 'Missing' is a movie less about action than it is about a father who realizes he has been betrayed by his own beliefs and government.

Jack Lemmon gives another standout performance (in a career that had many) as the uptight father that learns to accept his son only after his suspected death. The emotional evolution from devout christian/disapproving dad to grieving father with 'opened eyes' is engaging to watch. Sissy Spacek shows the strength that should have won her a second oscar 2001 for "In The Bedroom" as the wife who never stops looking for her husband. But the clear winner in this politcal thriller is the director Costa Gravas, who constantly keeps the politcal tension high, without upstaging the performances of the leads.

A great drama that deal with life/death and the bond between parents and their children.