Tunnustus

Here is a French-Italian film by a Greek filmmaker, Costa-Gavras. The film was released in 1970, and stars Yves Montand, with Simone Signoret costarring. The acting is impressive and all the performances are very solid. Stylistically, the film feels similar to Costa-Gavras's last film, "Z", utilizing polished camera-work in what is ultimately a classicist mode of filmmaking that was popular for many political films in the '60s through the mid-'70s, such as Schlondorff's "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum". The cinematography looks quite good, and you would expect as much, given that it was done by the famous cinematographer of the French New Wave, Raoul Coutard, who worked on virtually all of Godard's and Truffaut's early films, as well as "Z".

Like all the Costa-Gavras films I've seen, "The Confession" is a highly political film, delivered from a communist perspective. It's based on a novel by Artur London, in which London details his true-life experiences of being abducted, tortured, and put on trial by the Czechoslovakian government in the early '50s.

The first misconception that must be dispelled is the idea that this is somehow an anti-communist film. It most certainly is not. Many viewers have noted the idea that, unlike "Z", which blatantly glorified communism, "The Confession" is much less politically biased, revealing the faults in both sides of the political spectrum. I have to completely disagree. "The Confession" is just as overtly pro-communist as "Z". Viewers should be reminded that it's not actually communism that Costa-Gavras is attacking in this film. Rather, he's attacking a specific regime in Czechoslovakia that corrupted communism and twisted it into a fascistic, totalitarian entity that, for Costa-Gavras, is not truly communism at all. Stalinism is the target of Costa-Gavras's criticism here, not communism. At no point in the film is the inherent virtue of communism ever brought into question. At most, the film provides a warning, like Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others", regarding how quickly socialism can become fascism, and a reminder of the often thin line that separates the two.

So, while Costa-Gavras is certainly making a critical commentary on the challenges of sustaining a true socialist state, he is never, at any point, questioning the notion that communism is intrinsically righteous and that it remains the ultimate goal toward which humanity and society should strive. That idea is axiomatic in "The Confession" just as it was in "Z". For Costa-Gavras, communism is still infallible, and therefore if something is flawed, then it must not be actual communism (in logic, I believe this is referred to as the "No true Scotsman" fallacy).

In spite of this, I have a lot of respect for what Costa-Gavras did with this film. Yes, it's blindly faithful to the idea of communism, but it is at least willing to concede that communism is, indeed, corruptible. It may be infallible, in Costa-Gavras's eyes, but under the wrong conditions, it can be mutated into something that is fallible. This is sophistry, of course, but that's the point: With "The Confession", Costa-Gavras manages to condemn the corrupting of communism, and the form this corruption took, without ever condemning communism itself. It's a bit of a copout, admittedly, but it's much more than many staunch communists of the day were willing to acknowledge. Much like the protagonist of the film — that is to say, like Artur London himself — Costa-Gavras remains loyal to the idea of communism, in spite of everything he's seen in the events depicted in the film.

So there really is nothing anti-communist here, anymore than it would be anti-Catholic to acknowledge the existence of the Inquisition. An anti-communist film would endeavor to challenge the merits of communism, to doubt its inherent worth. Nothing could be further from the reality of this film. Communism is accepted by Costa-Gavras as an innately righteous entity, and nothing in the film denies that idea. However, Costa-Gavras has at least had the courage to confront the reality that even socialism can make mistakes, and he seems to firmly believe that those mistakes need to be acknowledged and rectified, and not rejected and hidden away from the public eye. Sadly, many communists did not agree. They feared that the film would provide ammunition for anti-communists, and they saw it as an attack on the integrity of communism. They preferred, evidently, that the truth be buried, which is quite hypocritical, since it goes against the very principles of communism, and the idea that, as Antonio Gramsci said, telling the truth is a revolutionary act in itself.

As a result, I appreciate Costa-Gavras's courage in making this film, as I do Artur London's in writing the novel that it's based on. It shows a genuine commitment to one's beliefs, which is something I can deeply respect, whether I share those beliefs or not.

Politics aside, I think most viewers will find this film very entertaining. It tells an intriguing story, it's well acted, and it benefits from impressive direction on Costa-Gavras's part and characteristically high quality cinematography from Coutard. Stripping the film of its communist ideals, what we're left with is a film about an individual bearing the burden of human injustice, and ultimately suffering for maintaining blind loyalty to a cause. It was a loyalty that, when all was said and done, only traveled in one direction. In this way, the film carries thematic similarities to many of the chanbara (samurai) films that Japan churned out in the '60s. So I don't think the communist implications of the film should be much of a turnoff to even the most ardently anti-communist viewers. Other than an unfortunately propagandistic ending, Costa-Gavras makes it easy enough to set all of that aside and interpret the film on much broader terms, if the viewer is so inclined.

RATING: 8.00 out of 10 stars