Issue 226 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published January 1999 Copyright © Socialist Review

'Any resemblance to real events, or to people, alive or dead, is no coincidence. It is INTENTIONAL.' The preface to Costa Gavras' film Z reflects the unequivocal stance of this classic political thriller, shown last month as part of BBC2's programming on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the International Declaration of Human Rights. The 'real event' referred to is the 1967 colonels' coup in Greece. The sound score was composed by Mikis Theodorakis, a socialist whose music was banned by the Greek junta. But the film, made in 1968, always had a wider political significance.

When it was made thrillers were either right wing Cold War spy films, or featured intrepid criminal investigators who always brought their culprits to book. Z was a shock. It turned the genre on its head in an angry, no holds barred attack on the apparatus of state power. The plot revolves around the exposure of a conspiracy to assassinate a popular left wing parliamentarian whose pacifist, anti-nuclear position is seen as a threat to his country's membership of Nato. Costa Gavras targets not only the generals, the police chiefs and the politicians involved in the conspiracy, but the system on which their power is based. As the film's opening credits roll, the camera pans close up across an array of military medals and state insignia inscribed with pious mottoes invoking honour, duty and courage.

Costa Gavras uses the thriller form to connect with an audience who may have no overt political commitment. Therefore in Z, and perhaps even more successfully in his later film, Missing, he relies on developing characters who are neither political crusaders nor, in a direct sense, the victims. In Z a young examining magistrate confounds both himself and the authorities as he amasses the evidence of criminal conspiracy. Those who provide evidence of the conspiracy are just ordinary individuals unconcerned with politics. They are often, in their own way, a little opportunistic but nonetheless find themselves forced to take sides anyway.

Even our revulsion at the neo-fascist street scum who undertake the murder is tempered by a recognition that their vile politics have roots in their miserable existence. 'If the rich get a cold, they're off to bed. Us poor have to go on slaving even with broken legs, or it's the grave,' complains one. They have ordinary woes and troubles, scrabbling to pay off a bank loan on a cheap truck or desperately trying to procure a market trader's license for their precious figs. In a metaphor of their relationship to those who hold real power, some only make ends meet by selling their blood.

In contrast to the venom of the fascists there is the selflessness of an anonymous worker who helps to protect the deputy from the thugs. 'Who are you?' asks one of the aides. 'I'm a stonemason', he replies modestly, as if that is all that anyone would want to know of him.

As the thugs and the police assemble to attack the left wing meeting the respectable representatives of the state, who have either planned or will later cover up the assassination, don their sharp suits and uniforms to attend the Bolshoi Ballet on the other side of town. At the ballet, at least, 'ideology' is no barrier to entry.

As Costa Gavras' film went on release in 1968 the world was in political turmoil. Millions were beginning to question whether the state could ever be transformed through peaceful, democratic means. As the fatally injured deputy lies dying on the operating table, his supporters argue whether being too confrontational will alienate the judicial authorities, scuppering any chance of a criminal investigation. Raging at the half hearted press statement his colleagues plan to release, one dissenter storms, 'It is snivelling, defensive! We have to go on the offensive!'

I was elated when I first saw Z. As a 14 year old school student in a London comprehensive I was trying to argue against the opinions of some of my schoolmates. We were continually berated in our classrooms by a group of reactionary teachers on the evils of Communism. Nuclear disarmament and support for the protesters fighting street battles with police on the streets of Paris, Derry and Chicago were not automatically seen as good causes. Like the left wingers in Z I too tried to insist that socialist politics were, in essence, moderate, reasonable, and non-violent. Snivelling? Hopefully not, but defensive certainly. Costa Gavras' film held a very simple message for me: defiance of 'law and order' was something to take pride in, not apologise for. It was a film that engraved itself upon my early political outlook.

Costa Gavras ruthlessly demolishes any illusion that the power of the state can be brought under control. At the end of Z bemedalled generals and police chiefs bluster as they are summoned one by one to the magistrate's office to be charged with murder. After each long tirade they are simply asked for their surname, first name, and occupation. As the charges are read out the stenographer's typewriter thunders like a victory drum roll. But Costa Gavras is too rigorous to allow his enemies to be defeated on their own territory. The final reels make clear that state violence will not be held to account so easily.

There may be little indication of a revolutionary solution in Costa Gavras' films, but their uncompromising anger and rage at a system that will go to any lengths to defend itself was groundbreaking, and they remain inspiring viewing.
Rob Ferguson