Z (1969)
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jean-Louis Trintignant
DVD Info
Release:
Jun 25, 2002
DVD Features:
- Region 0
- Keep Case
- Letterboxed
Audio:
- Mono - French
- Dolby Digital 5.1 - French
- Subtitles - English - Optional
Additional Release Material:
- Audio Commentary
- Featurette - 1. Excerpts from "Costa Gavras Talks With Marcel Ophuls: Political Films"
- Trailers
Interactive Features:
- Scene Access
- Interactive Menus
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
This movie is for those who prefer for there to be meat on a screenplay's skeleton and who don't demand far-fetched conspiracy theories that play fast and loose with the facts.
A punchy political pic [from the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos] that mixes action, violence, and conspiracy on a robust, lavish scale.
The recreation of the murder and the subsequent investigation uses the techniques of an American thriller to gripping effect, though conspiracies are so commonplace nowadays that it's hard to imagine the impact it made at the time.
It is a film of our time. It is about how even moral victories are corrupted. It will make you weep and will make you angry. It will tear your guts out.
As fresh and cogent today as it was then -- or perhaps it's simply that real life has made it once again relevant.
One of the most riveting political films ever made with its vivid depiction of the corrupt and corrosive lust for power.
The Frenchies smoke, drink, and mumble their way through the whole affair. There's no "intrigue," no matter what the critics say.
Costa-Garvas organizes the material brilliantly to maintain interest, gradually revealing new layers of intrigue as the plot unwinds Rashoman-like style
The usual excuse for films like this is that the crude melodrama helps communicate important political ideas and historical information, but Z doesn't communicate anything.


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