Missing

Missing (1982) dir. Costa-Gavras
Starring: Sissy Spacek, Jack Lemmon, John Shea, Melanie Mayron

***

Quick, name the Palm D’Or winner of 1982… You’re right, it’s “Missing”, Costa-Gavras’ American-made political drama. It also nabbed Lemmon a Best Actor trophy at Cannes and three of the major Oscar Nominations that year – Best Actor, Actress, Picture. Until its Criterion Collection coronation on DVD last year it was a forgotten classic – ‘missing’ from DVD shelves for years.

Unfortunately the integrity of the film and it’s political message trumps its entertainment aspects. While there’s a passionate desire for truth, a slow pace and truncated narrative structure makes it more an admirable venture then great cinema.

Before Oliver Stone, Costa-Gavras was perhaps cinema’s best known and most experienced political dramatist. Unlike Stone, Costa-Gavras is not so much a provocateur as a truth-seeker. In “Z” with uninhibited anger dramatizes the unjust murder and cover-up of Greek leftist politician – a disguised version of assassinated Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis.

In “Missing”, like “Z” we never know the location of the story, but subtle clues tell us it’s Chile and an indictment of Augusto Pinochet’s military junta rule. John Shea and Sissy Spacek play Charles and Beth Horman, newlyweds who have chosen to live in the unnamed volatile South American country to get closer to the political pulse of this hot button region. One day the military presence is suddenly heightened and before they realize it the government has been taken over in a military coup. And then out of the blue Charles disappears – snatched from his home in the middle of the night.

Enter Ed Horman (Jack Lemmon) Charles’ father who arrives in town on a mission for answers and to ensure a forthright investigation by the American consulate. When the Americans present a standoffish front, Ed takes it upon himself to lead the investigation. And so Beth and Ed become an unlikely team – Beth, the young leftist radical, Ed, the elderly conservative father. Together they uncover clear American culpability in Horman’s disappearance as a pawn of appeasement for their participation in the coup.

Despite the political procedural details, “Missing” is at heart a picture about the two people who get to know each other amidst the cloud (or fog) of war. As a showcase for Lemmon “Missing” is a triumph as the film is so heavily weighted to his performance. Costa-Gavras even delays this satisfaction until the second act- going through a lengthy and tedious opening act before Horman disappears and Lemmon enters the picture.

From then on Jack Lemmon owns the film.

His performance, like a couple of his other great late-career serious roles – “The China Syndrome”, “Glengarry Glen Ross” – is magnetic and electrifying. His glances and small mannerisms are the stuff of acting royalty. I can think of only a handful actors with this kind of presence and power.

The actual narrative details, the movement of A to B to C and the political revelations aren’t as profound as they may have been in 1982. American participation in military coups are not even contested anymore – they are an accepted fact of their Machevellian roles in the world politics. And so the film leads to where we expect it to go, thus reducing its controversial power.

But “Missing” is still a film to be rediscovered merely for the presence of Jack Lemmon, one the greatest ever actors, in an amazing Brando-worthy performance, little seen and discussed today.