Missing (1982)

Missing (stylized as missing.) (1982) Director: Costa-Gravas Watched: June 9, 2018 Rating: 6/10 Corrupt governments, U.S.-backed Chilean coup, Though needs more context. Rushed abrupt end, Mystery solved- so that's it? Inept epilogue. Convincing acting, Lemmon's growth as father, man; Spacek most of all. A gift for making The abstract feel pertinent, Haunting and moving. Costa-Gavras clearly knows His political thrillers. Haiku Sonnets are comprised of 4 3-line haiku plus a couplet of either 5 or 7 syllables, adding up to 14 lines, the same number of lines found in a sonnet. (5-7-5, 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 7-7/5-5). #HaikuSonnet #PoemReview #Palm'dOr #Political #SouthAmerican

Terry Simon (Melanie Mayron) is trying to go home after the Chilean coup of 1973 but the airport is shut down. She and her writer friend Charlie Horman (John Shea) may have stumbled upon secret American involvement. Charlie goes missing. His wife Beth (Sissy Spacek) comes home to find it trashed. His father Ed (Jack Lemmon) is given the runaround in Washington and goes down to find his only son himself. Ed trusts his government implicitly, dislike his son's choices and dismisses Beth constantly.The ending is never really in doubt and that takes away from the drama. Ed could have been written slightly differently. He has issues with Charlie and Beth. His blind faith in the embassy feels wrong even in relations with his experience in Washington. His mantra should be anything to get his son home. Instead he concentrates more on fighting with Beth. It makes him naive at best but also different from his start. Beth can get a bit preachy too. This is a harrowing story and there are compelling scenes.

Growing up in the Fifties as the USA hunkered down in the Cold War it was a nostrum repeated to us time and again that no country ever chose Communism by a democratic election. When the people of Chile elected Marxist Salvador Allende with a plurality of the vote that could no longer be said. But for the USA Allende maybe because he was elected and not part of a coup he was like an aberration that had to be expunged one way or another. In the world of geopolitics Chile would be quite a prize for the other side. It's one of the leading suppliers of copper and probably the leading supplier to the world of nitrates. Can't let that country go red.So with this in mind our Central Intelligence Agency directed a military coup against Allende who either committed suicide or was murdered by those who rose against him. A very brutal dictator named Augusto Pinochet took over and his reprisals were long and bloody. Sometimes they extended to foreigners as they did in Missing.The story of Missing concerns the father and the wife of the missing John Shea who was a free lance journalist who like so many simply vanished when it was known he was an opponent of the regime. John Shea is seen at the beginning of Missing and he's a guy who hasn't quite settled down and thinking maybe this free lance journalism is what I'm meant for, finally. He fails to listen to the advice a few friends to be more discreet and not so obviously noting down the answers people give him.When he goes missing his father played by Jack Lemmon comes down from America and joins Sissy Spacek who is Shea's wife. Father and daughter-in-law search everywhere and are given nothing but stonewalling answers from the Chileans and the American officials on the scene. What Shea's cardinal sin was the discovery of those unofficial Americans on the scene, mostly of military background which contrasts the official line that America had not a thing to do with Allende's overthrow. Lemmon and Spacek got Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress for Missing. Lemmon who most people identify with as a comic actor kept surprising us his entire life with dramatic performances that were special. The politics of Missing are diverted when Lemmon is on and we concentrate on a father's overwhelming grief and confusion over the fate of his son. He knows the worst has happened, that's confirmed by all he sees. Yet Lemmon's expressions tell all and the same could be said for Sissy Spacek.Missing was also up for Best Picture and did win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was up that year against the grand pageantry of Gandhi as were a few other worthwhile films. Missing is one unsavory story that should be told and retold.

It's an old story, when it comes to this nation's politics: genocide, slavery, the overthrow of democratically-elected leaders, etc. A quote, from Harlan Ellison's short story BASILISK: "In the name of freedom, no monstrousness is too great." MISSING boasts several outstanding performances, chief among them Jack Lemmon's: has any actor, in any movie, ever managed to convey such pathos? I'm hard put to think of one- and Sissy Spacek's low-key deference to Lemmon's anxiety is the perfect accompaniment. Thomas Hauser (whose biography of Muhammad Ali was one of my childhood treasures) tackles slaughterhouse politics with a keen eye toward the Truth; he pulls no punches- one can't ask for more than that. Now that the Truth is finally beginning to be disseminated around the world (thanks to DEMOCRACY NOW!, FREE SPEECH TV, ALJAZEERA and LINK TV, among others), there's hope that euphemisms like "lobbying" (bribery) and "campaign donations" (graft) that are used to allow racketeers of every stripe to shape political policy and to prop up or take down- or to prop up and THEN take down- corrupt regimes around the world will finally be dispensed with and things set right. Ellison again, from BASILISK: "Power to the people."