Desaparecido: Um Grande Mistério

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.

Missing tells the true story of Charlie Horman, an idealistic writer who disappeared in Chile after the U.S.-backed military coup of 1973. It's told primarily through the perspective of Horman's father Ed, played by Jack Lemmon, who joins up with his daughter-in-law Beth (Sissy Spacek) to try and find Charlie amidst the chaos of a nation in turmoil. The hunt for Charlie is never particularly engaging or mysterious, especially if you know the ultimate fate of their search going in, but what the film excels at is adding the human element to this kind of personal tragedy.

Directed by Costa-Gavras, Missing is a film that seems to care more about informing the world of this gross injustice, rather than do anything particularly entertaining for it's audience. Opening with the statement that the events of the film are true and left unchanged, there is certainly an air of importance added to their search, always leaving the audience aware of the real life consequences of this crime. It's a condemnation of government and negligence, much like Gavras' earlier film Z, but it's much more about the emotional conflict of Ed Horman than it is about trying to thrill it's audience.

Beth and Charlie were idealists, some could even say radical liberals, but Ed was a very conservative man who shunned their attacks on the government. He was a man who believed in what his nation stood for and through the beginning of the film he is constantly giving them the benefit of the doubt, trusting that they are not being lied to. The brilliant evolution that occurs in this film is in the way that Ed slowly comes around more to Beth's way of thinking; they start off on opposite sides but gradually come together as he begins to form a distrust in the U.S. government in Chile and a rage inside of him grows.

Lemmon's performance stands among his best, slowly developing a more angered and combative streak in Horman, but never losing sight of the fact that this is ultimately just a man who wants his son back. There's a scene late in the film where he is pleading for his son, practically on his hands and knees, not caring if he is dead or alive he just wants his son so he can return home, that is absolutely devastating. Lemmon and Gavras succeed admirably in bringing this heartbreaking story to the public eye, made even more wrenching when the final truth is revealed (or even more so if you read up on the events that occurred after the film was released).

I was 17 when I first saw the film in 1982 and I can say, that it changed my life. Up to that I believe in my own government an I believe in the US, as a strong friend of all democratic countries. After this film I'd never take the things for real. I questioned everything and this is good. Use your mind, try to get informations from all sides. I think Chile is one reason, that the US doesn't sign the treaty for the international court, because guys like Kissinger had to be scared, that he has to take responsability for Chile and Vietnam. Everything was said of the great performance of the actors in this film. This is the best political thriller ever made.

"Missing" is a strong, powerful political thriller about the real life story of a man and woman who search for their missing son/husband during the 1973 coup in a volatile South American country. Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek give brilliant, Oscar-nominated performances as Ed and Beth Horman, the father and wife of their beloved one who has disappeared without a trace. The film follows their frustrating search in a country (which is Chile even though the movie never reveals) that I would not dare live in. Things get more frustrating for the Hormans when they start to believe that the American representatives there are not telling them everything. Directed by Costa-Gavras ("Z"), "Missing" is an emotional film that keep me interested for its entire two hours. Lemmon and Spacek are great as usual, and there are supporting roles for Melanie Mayron and Joe Regalbuto, a couple of years before they turned up on TV's "Thirtysomething" and "Murphy Brown", respectably. "Missing" is one of the best, strongest political thrillers ever made.

***1/2 (out of four)

Costa Govras' political thriller MISSING remains one of the strongest and least preachy works done about the Chilean Coup d'etat of 1973. The coup, which occurred on the 11th of September of that year, was widely endorsed by the political elite of Chile, with some quiet infrastructural support from the U.S. State Department. The Secretary of State at that time, one Henry Kissinger, asserted to the Nixon cabinet that "he saw no reason to allow any country to go communist due to the ignorance of its people", and that the Chilean economy should be "made to scream". Hence, every support was given to the supporters of General Augusto Pinochet, and the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende was deposed and defeated within days.

Govras chose as background for his film the actual diaries of Charles Horman, a lefty artist type who was living with his wife Beth in Chile. Horman had apparently picked up the unfortunate habit of inquiring into some dangerous affairs in a rather loud way. Isolated in every sense from any "live" political current, his disappearance and murder were relatively easy to accomplish, even though he was a United States citizen. The actor John Shea portrays Charles Horman as a naive sort, and there is no reason to assume this was an inaccurate depiction. Most citizens of the United States overseas are sheltered from the skulduggery of realpolitik, and most cling to some rather dangerous illusions about how far their rights as citizens actually extend. U.S. citizens in Lebanon who had to pay for their removal from that combat front last summer have learned this the hard way recently.

Jack Lemmon is stellar as Charles' father Ed Horman, who made the trip to Chile under the impression that he had rights his government felt bound to respect, and who discovered otherwise. And Cissy Spacek is never anything less than full marks as Beth Horman.

MISSING accomplishes what few political dramas do. It asks its viewer to consider the human dimensions and costs of an imperial political reality, and it portrays with a deadly earnestness what these ideas do to people caught up in the sway of such notions. There are no monsters in MISSING, just people who are doing their jobs and following orders. And therein lies the horror, one which all too many of our fellow citizens have yet to come to grips with. It is a rare feat among political films, an actual work of art. But don't be surprised if you need a stiff drink after viewing it. That's how I felt when I first saw this work after its release in 1982, and it still has that effect upon me today.