Missing (1982)

The peril facing a lone American amid Third World political turmoil is elegantly communicated in this important film from Costa-Gavras (Z), adapted by the director and Donald Stewart from Thomas Hauser's nonfiction book. The key to its power onscreen stems from the decision not to center the action merely on the disappearance of Charles Horman (John Shea), but also on the search for him by his father Ed (Jack Lemmon)--and on Ed's discovery of a son he never knew. The Oscar-winning script flows freely between that search and Charles's earlier experiences in the unnamed country (in the true account, Chile). Providing a link between those two stories is Charles's wife Beth (Sissy Spacek), who follows her father-in-law around a country in chaos, teeming with reckless authority and disinterested American diplomats (epitomized by ace character actor David Clennon). The film, which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, is certainly manipulative, but it works because of its finely detailed human elements. Usually emotionally extroverted, Lemmon gives one of his finest performances playing against that type--here, he's a controlled, intellectual man who learns more about his son, and his country, than he ever dreamed he would. --Doug Thomas Amazon.com essential video

Shock and Awe: the First Round

Charles Horman, the young man whose "disappearance" following the murderous right-wing coup in Chile is the subject of this powerful film, was a classmate and friend of mine at Harvard College. After graduation, I didn't keep in touch with Charlie. In fact, the first I heard of his fate at the hands of the butcher Pinochet was when this movie was released. Needless to say, it was the most traumatic experience I've ever had at the cinema.

Ironically, one of the other young men at Harvard in the early 1960s was the son of Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago economist whose economic dogma of absolutist capitalist had almost as much to do with the death of Charles Horman and of the thousands of others who "disappeared" into CIA files and unmarked mass graves in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. I can't remember for sure whether Charlie, David Friedman, and I ever argued about politics/economics as a threesome, but if we did, it would have cast Charlie as the moderate. Moderation and human decency were the qualities most remembered about Charles Horman among his friends and acquaintances at Harvard. Rather few of us foresaw that Friedman's 'neo-liberal' economics, now known as neo-conservatism, would become the intellectual justification of decades of terror-based tyranny in Latin America just as much as for the rise of Reaganomics and the attempt by GW Bush to build a new global free-market Iraq not wanted by Iraqis. This story is well told in the recent book "The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein. If the movie "Missing" made an impression on you, wait till you read the book! August 22, 2008

This film is truly missing something...

I know that my opinion is in the minority here, but `Missing' was not the film I was hoping to see. It draws similarities to last years `A Mighty Heart' but it has almost the complete opposite set of detractions. I was really put off by `A Mighty Hearts' chaotic pacing (which I tend to believe was a result of trying to convey the chaos of the situation) and found that I couldn't really invest myself in the film as deeply as I wanted to. With `Missing' I felt the opposite was happening. The film suffers from almost no chaos. It just kind of remains stagnant and causes my interest to wane considerably.

The story behind `Missing' is one of intrigue. It follows Beth and Ed Horman as they pressure the government to find their missing husband/son. Charlie Horman, a journalist, was in South America (where he lived with this wife) when he went missing, and the local authorities do not seem to want to lend a helping hand as Beth and Ed struggle to find him.

What I will say about the film is that script was constructed very well. The political corruption that stilted the discovery of Charles whereabouts is brilliantly handled and given ample attention. The relationship between Beth and Ed is also given just treatment, for they are seen as real people and not characters on a screen. This being a true story, it is important that there be an honesty to the situations and activities, and you can feel that in `Missing'. I won't say that the pacing hinders the film entirely, for there are moments within the film where the pulled back delivery works well, but the entire film should not feel that way. A little more attention to that detail could have lifted this film from a merely passable drama to a tightly woven drama.

Another quarrel that I have is with Jack Lemmon. I personally adore this actor and feel that almost everything he has touched has been fantastic. This was not one of those moments for me. I didn't feel as though his confliction was believable. He felt almost uncomfortable, and that discomfort didn't read well on the screen. When I first saw this film I thought that maybe I just didn't like Lemmon as a dramatic actor, but that's not the case, for his performances in films like `The China Syndrome' and `Short Cuts' were impeccable to say the least. Here though I just saw him acting as apposed to living.

Like `A Mighty Heart' though, `Missing' rises on the wings if it's female lead. Sissy Spacek is effortlessly captivating as Beth. Her performance captures everything that Lemmon could not, delivering a real living breathing wife trying desperately to find answers. Spacek is a phenomenal actress, and this is one of her finest performances.

In the end I have to say that `Missing' did not deliver all that it should have. I know that I am not in the majority when I say that, for most of the reviews for this film are on the four and five star range. Maybe they are seeing something that I am not; well, obviously they are. To say that I just don't appreciate a slow moving drama would be missing the point (some of my favorite films are slower paced and brooding like `In the Bedroom' or the recently reviewed `The Door in the Floor') because to slow a film down to create a mood is one thing, but there comes a point where your pace can effect your audiences interest, and if that is not taken into account then one can become bored and eventually sever all emotional connection to a film. You have to learn when to speed things up and when to pull things back. There's compromise and give and take in everything; especially filmmaking. August 13, 2008

Equivocacion con caracteristicas de producto

MissingYo mande a comprar la pelicula Missing con lenguaje en Español, de hecho la orden de compra asi lo indicaba, pero a la hora de que me llego el DVD no viene en Español

Agradezco me puedan ayudar a enviar la pelicula correcta o me la cambien por otra que pueda elegir


July 3, 2008

Good movie..but didn't stand passing time!

I am a great admirer of Costa Gavras movies and although this one remains well constructed and an eye opener for the US government involvement in regime change in Chile (pretty obvious it is a movie about the coup installing Pinochet in Chile...), it certainly doesn't have the power of other much better movies from the Director such as "Z", "Section Speciale", or "L'Aveu" which are more realistic and on the darker side.
Actors are great, but it simply don't stand the time. We are living in troubled times again where "Missing" stories could be anywhere in the world today. For the keen observer, it has lost its power, but not its message... May 23, 2008

Missing

During the Cold War (1945-1990) it was the policy of successive US governments to maintain authoritarian right-wing governments in power all around the world if there was a possibility that they might be replaced by one from the left, democratic or otherwise. As the US ambassador in this film reminds us `we act in the interests of the United States', not in the interests of the country which happens to be suffering under a dictatorship. We can accept this on an intellectual level - how else can the US government establishment act - but in this movie Costa-Gavras uses his very considerable skills as a film-maker to rouse even diehard conservatives to anger over the methods used to ensure Pax Americana.

He does this by dramatizing the real-life story of one of their number, Ed Holman (Jack Lemmon), a businessman from New York and a Christian Scientist with faith in Truth, into the aftermath of a military coup in an unnamed South American country with the capital of Santiago. His son Charles (John Shea), a vaguely left-wing journalist and writer, living in the city with his wife Beth (Sissy Spacek), has disappeared after being arrested a few days after the coup and carted off to a makeshift concentration camp in the National Stadium. Initially, Ed believes the people at the American consulate and embassy really are there to help him, but it soon turns out they have an agenda of their own. Ed and his son's wife start out on bad terms but Ed comes to appreciate her bravery in the face of a very unstable situation. He also comes to realize the moral worth of his son, who he had previously regarded as a bit of a playboy, much as he had loved him.

What "Missing" cannot say, though it says a lot, is that the country it portrays is Chile in the first days of the unelected reign of Pinochet. What it does say, much of which has been corroborated by recently unclassified documents, is that the United States, led by the statesmanship of Henry Kissinger, supported Pinochet's coup and toppling of a democratically elected regime because they were not friendly enough to "American interests." The bottom line, as the movie makes inarguably clear, is that Pinochet was propped up into power largely thanks to the United States; the blood of thousands of Chileans is thus partially on our hands. This is the larger political point of the film. Until our government owns up to this, one of the most abominable and least-discussed crimes of the Nixon administration, the film "Missing," despite being a fictional take on true events, will be an enormously important document. This is art so close to politics that there's almost no art there. But it still must be seen; the message is too important. All Americans need to confront this episode in our past and come to terms with the fact that our government is a democracy only up to a point. Beyond that point, there are decisions made that we have no control over, no knowledge of, but nonetheless result in horrific events.

Costa-Gavras sketches a Santiago beyond all nightmares, so hellish that it simply had to be true. With almost constant gunfire and monstrosities going on in plain view, we watch Chileans suffer enormously under the strain and stress. The film is an exercise in impotence, de-humanization. Ed Holman (Jack Lemmon), in one of his most courageous performances, has the humility to offer an utterly normal American man's reaction to all this. First he trusts his government, and then, as he realizes that they are at fault for his son's death, he simply implodes. He makes threats but we are instantly told they will achieve nothing. He is even reprimanded by the American officials responsible; his son should have not been a "snoop": "you play with fire, you get burned." He crumples, worn down by a world more brutal than imaginable. It is the price we pay, the film seems to say, for living in a safe, wealthy country like America: this blood on our hands that we don't ever think about. And then, if we are forced to confront it, our own ignorance leaves us too weak to deal with it.

Ed Holman's character's impotence is matched by that of his son's, in his arrest and death. This is one of the bleakest films I have ever seen on the subject of individuality in the face of the state. Chile is meant to stand both for the 3rd world and America- both at once, complicit in this mini-Holocaust. His son is a decent guy, totally harmless, attempting to "be connected to the whole enchilada," as his wife puts it, but certainly no revolutionary. But what does this life, this human being who has lived with integrity, matter when bulldozed by the sweep of a machine-like government? Indeed, the US officials who pretend to help Ed Holman are truly cogs; emotionless, deadpan, their portrayal is surely propagandistic- the politicos of our worst fears. But the film's resonance is more the possibility that this was true; it seems likely, given what is now known of Nixon's administration. What other sort of people could have knowingly perpetrated such monstrosities besides Eichmanns, empty of soul or conscience, pure puppets?

As I said, there is ultimately little art in this film. It is certainly not about the triumph of the human spirit, as the battle is already lost before Ed Holman gets to Chile. No, it is more about the total negation of the human spirit, and body, for that matter, in the face of the indomitable state. Problematic as it may be, this art document leaves a strictly political aftertaste, because it so convincingly asks the question: why, as a country, have we not come to terms with the fact that our government is responsible for events like this, time and time again?
April 21, 2008

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