I liked the movie, yet I did not enjoy watching it.
The movie starts in the middle of the story and a lot of stuff is presented in form of flashbacks.
The movie starts with Jack Lemmon arriving in Chile to look for his son, and he is the vehicle through which we discover what happened to the son and how the Coup d'état took place. It is an interesting concept on paper and you feel at times that the movie relies on a literary source. Unfortunately, in movie format it does not translate as well. In other words, the movie is a jumbled mess. The story structure is too disjointed.
It is not unfollowable, but it is complicated. There are a lot of jumps in time, too many characters, you don't know what is going on and who is doing what most of the time. In a book those are not issue because you can spend time explaining these things.
It is not to say that the movie is bad, because it is not. Ultimately, those flaws does not affect the story. The movie is the story of the father. It is the story of a law-abiding citizen that realizes that government officials are deceiving him, that in some countries the law enforcement apparatus is not used to regulate violence or crime but to control and subdue its citizenry. In a nutshell it is the story of an American discovering that exceptionalism is a sham. That is what the movie is about.
The movie unfolds this concept slowly, but it allows to appreciate the extent of institutional violence. There are many poignant scenes in this film, but what struck me is that they were never over the top, or manipulative. Instead the violence and the "action" scenes are very descriptive. It feels counterintuitive but it gives the movie more heft. It's a technique Costa-Gavras employs in his other works too. The greatest violence is not displayed in the shootings or beatings but in the offices and during phone calls. The violence is not in the acts, but in the absence of justice.
Here, one of those is when they go through room of victims of the putsch, where it is just endless rooms filled with dead corpses. It does not matter if it real or not, but what matters is that we are shown the consequences of these events. Another gut-wrenching one is the visit to the stadium, where prisoners are held. Yet, the worst/most impactful sequence for me was when Sissy Spacek is breaking curfew. That sequence is more terrifying than any horror movie.
Of course, you could argue that the movie is anti-American. That would be a very shallow interpretation, and furthermore a disingenuous one. If anything, the movie is pro-America, pro-people, and pro-democracy. Certainly, it is against government tyranny and arbitrary justice. The real victim are American ideals, the movie embraces them. The main victim in this story is an American citizen, and the whole movie shows how certain people view themselves outside the rules set for the rest of us.
It is not to say that the movie is bad, because it is not. Ultimately, those flaws does not affect the story. The movie is the story of the father. It is the story of a law-abiding citizen that realizes that government officials are deceiving him, that in some countries the law enforcement apparatus is not used to regulate violence or crime but to control and subdue its citizenry. In a nutshell it is the story of an American discovering that exceptionalism is a sham. That is what the movie is about.
The movie unfolds this concept slowly, but it allows to appreciate the extent of institutional violence. There are many poignant scenes in this film, but what struck me is that they were never over the top, or manipulative. Instead the violence and the "action" scenes are very descriptive. It feels counterintuitive but it gives the movie more heft. It's a technique Costa-Gavras employs in his other works too. The greatest violence is not displayed in the shootings or beatings but in the offices and during phone calls. The violence is not in the acts, but in the absence of justice.
Here, one of those is when they go through room of victims of the putsch, where it is just endless rooms filled with dead corpses. It does not matter if it real or not, but what matters is that we are shown the consequences of these events. Another gut-wrenching one is the visit to the stadium, where prisoners are held. Yet, the worst/most impactful sequence for me was when Sissy Spacek is breaking curfew. That sequence is more terrifying than any horror movie.
Of course, you could argue that the movie is anti-American. That would be a very shallow interpretation, and furthermore a disingenuous one. If anything, the movie is pro-America, pro-people, and pro-democracy. Certainly, it is against government tyranny and arbitrary justice. The real victim are American ideals, the movie embraces them. The main victim in this story is an American citizen, and the whole movie shows how certain people view themselves outside the rules set for the rest of us.