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Under discussion:
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Z
(1969)
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M
(1931)
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This blog entry is part of my "movie year countdown round #2". Read more about that here.
Z
You have to love these one letter titles. I think one test for the quality of a movie database search engine is to look up the title of this movie or maybe Fritz Lang's M and see how well it handles that. Spout actually fails in this area, but I think most people here are aware that even though they have a large database of titles, the search engine still has some shortcomings. I had to look up the names of the directors in order to find these titles.
Anyways Z was a movie that I had a somewhat difficult time following at first. All of the information coming at me. I had a difficult time at first recognizing the political context of the world I was entering. I didn't know who was on what side, and how they were related, and what they stood for. I didn't realize that Z was based on a novel that was based on real events. After a while it picked up as I started to put things together. By the end of the film I was totally taken with it, and excited to watch it over again with commentary (although I would have watched it again without) to see everything over again from the beginning with a better understanding of the context.
When it first begins it seems like it may be a very culturally specific story, but you soon realize this is a universal tail of political power and corruption. The struggle for power, manipulation, propaganda, repression, assassinations, all of it seems very familiar and is going on and has gone on in every government and society in the world. You even start to realize that many of the people in the film don't even have names, but are just referred to as The Deputy or The General or The Journalist hinting even more at its universality. I can't find the exact record but keep running across various claims that this was the highest worldwide grossing non-English speaking film at some point or something along those lines. The point is, you can see why this had such a universal appeal.
The movie has a style all it's own. The pacing felt unusual to me, but satisfying. There are sometimes many quick cuts, including quick cut flashbacks. These are flashbacks without any dissolve or lingering. They give you the basic flashback information just as long as is needed and then cut back to the action. I can't think of many times this kind of flashback is used, other than maybe on Family Guy for a quick joke.
You think at the end of the movie there will be some kind of final satisfaction or justice. You get it for a moment, only to have it complete reversed again before the credits role. But then of course there is another kind of satisfaction in having a movie that presents what is really more of the truth.
Rating: 9/10