Missing Flirts with Greatness

The Cooper Point Journal Volume 10, Issue 18 (April 8, 1982)

Missing directed by Costa-Gavras.

This isn’t just another documentary / drama with Costa-Gavras at the helm. Missing flirts with greatness. In this his first Hollywood film Costa-Gavras again shows himself to be a master of the overtly political movie. By interspersing his hard-driving straight ahead approach with flashbacks tasteful voiceovers and bold visual imagery Costa-Gavras manages to keep her attention riveted to the screen for much of the film. It is unfortunate however that Missing, unlike that of Costa-Gavras’ best known film Z, makes for a political thriller with a notable lack of thrills.

In too many respects Missing is a Z– clone which fails to reach the power and perfection of its model. Whereas Z starts out slowly only to move inexorably faster like a coin spinning to a frenetic halt, Missing maintains a constant, almost static tempo until finally it limps off into the sunset. Unable to sustain any tension this way, Missing should have either been cut in length or else made to deviate substantially from the actual events it was designed to portray.

Missing is purported to be the true story of the disappearance of Charles Horman. It seems that Horman (John Shea) and his wife (Sissy Spacek,) young Americans both, had been drawn to Salvador Allende’s socialist experiment and had taken up residency in Santiago Chile. There Charles, a most naive political neophyte, became active in leftist publications. It was all very idealistic stimulating innocent until one bloody night in 1973. In short order Charles Harmon is missing.

The story revolves around his wife and his father (Jack Lemon) effort to look at young Harmon in the weeks after the coup against alien day. Predictably Spacek is the archetypical of Southern courage and Lemon represents religious conviction and ultimately belief in the American way. Both have been getting a lot of mileage lately playing these roles and true to past performances them again quite well here.

Costa-Gavras’ strong suit remains his ability to orchestrate explosive and convincing street scenes. At its most gripping best, early on and in the flashbacks, Missing shows a society in disintegration from the vantage point of jeeps and helicopters, from behind uniforms, rifles and walls. In the most powerful sequence, Spacek races home after curfew through streets ridden with corpses, holing up in a courtyard for the night. Terrified and exhaust she falls into a fitful sleep, a sleep punctuated by the cackle of guns and the drone of helicopters. Sometime before dawn, nearby shots awaken her and as she lifts her head she sees the image of a white stallion being chased down the street by a gang of thugs in uniform, firing at it from a Jeep. Spacek, no doubt wondering if she’s still dreaming, lays her head back down. In a simple, eloquent image we have seen Liberty being driven out of the land. This is the stuff of great movies.

In many respects Missing is a timely production. As with the China Syndrome / Three Mile Island connection, Missing benefits from the current concern over U.S. involvement in El Salvador. While leaving a lot of questions unanswered, Missing does suggest that this government is guilty of some heinous actions in at least one Latin American country. And one time Missing voices the bottom line of American democracy quite explicitly to the effect that What’s Good for General Motors Had Damn Well Better Be Good for the American People.

Which brings us to the bottom line of this review. Though as I’ve said it falls short of Z, Missing is still an altogether worthwhile movie experience. At the very least it’s tightly woven plot will demand that you pay some close attention. It is even more likely that you will leave the theater with much to talk about. Is not what Solidarity was trying to do in Poland similar to what Allende was trying to do in Chile? Then for its intervention is not the US on the same low level as the Soviet Union? But perhaps not quite after all, Man of Iron cannot be seen in Moscow while Missing is most certainly showing in DC. A thought provoker, Missing is and a must for Mom and Dad to see.