User Reviews

Came across this excellent film tonight on the Turner Classic Movie channel. I won't rehash the film story here, it has been explained quite well by previous reviewers.

Want only to state that I first saw it when it was released back in 1970-71. I was a very young soldier then. The Vietnam war was still raging and the cold war with the Soviets and Warsaw Pact nations was very real. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was still fresh in our minds.

Even though it is not entirely an anti-communist film, rather an honest look of what can and did go horribly wrong in soviet bloc countries, it was a chilling reminder to us of how frightening life could be in a totalitarian state.

Released here in the U.S. during a time of continued civil unrest and anti-war sentiment carried over from the late '60's, it was sort of a reality check to the growing affection for the left wing, socialist philosophy etc. among the younger generation.

In "L'Aveau" Costa-Gavras breaks at once and for all in defending one political ideology and attacking the other, like he did in "Z". This time he goes to show that both sides have their problematic aspects, they all make severe mistakes, we can't know which was good and which was bad. The bottom of line is that both with capitalism and communism someone decent always had to pay the prize for trying to do the right thing.

Yves Montand plays the victim once again (murdered in "Z" and arrested by militants in "Etat de Siege" closing the combative Gavras political trilogy, "Missing" goes as an addendum, made years later after those films), a Czech and Communist vice-minister who'll be arrested and suffer on the hands of other members of the party who consider him a traitor of their cause. They believe he was a spy who had connections with American officials and all they want is a full confession of his crimes, which never existed, never happened (and they know that!), using of mental and physical methods to achieve results with the prisoner. The confession extraction is the real purpose to be visualized in here, exploited in painful and realistic details, methods used by the Communist - I recalled some of the descriptions made by Soljenitsin in "Gulag Archipelag", released on the same year as "L'Aveau" - like privation of sleep, keep marching at all times inside of the cell, and many other horrible techniques they used on prisoners during months and years if possible in order to break their resistance and confess everything, real or not.

We have to give plenty of credit to Montand during those scenes, which are not few. Definitely not an easy shooting to make, you feel his exhaustion, weakening each frame goes by, the visible weight-loss, he went to extremes very few actors can reach and no, this isn't much method acting, one does not go in training method for those scenes, he just put himself there at each sequence. It doesn't go well for the character and it sure does not go well with the audience. It's hard to watch since the brutality and the frequency everything happens is so repetitive as if Gavras was trying to make the people in the audience to break out from the movie when in fact he's just being real with the events, causing some stir in us to the point where we ask ourselves how come this guy is not guilty of treason.

In this manifest against the totalitarianism, the writer and director seemed to not making of the Socialists the almost heroes they were in "Z", while investigating the assassination of the popular leader. Their destructive paranoia, the unsubstantial suspicion they had with their own members, it's all a smoke curtain to hide the flaws of bigger people working on the Party and to hide the failures of a deeply flawed and inconsistent regime.

Authentic, honorable and well-acted in all possible ways, just not much easy to endure. But truthful, powerful, haunting and rewarding nonetheless. 9/10

I'll start this review by saying that although I do consider Gavras to be a very good and skillful director, at the same moment I consider him overrated by many, at least according to the films I have seen of him (Z, Mad City and Amen). However, in this film he really left me at some moments breathless! The film is set in an unnamed communist state of Eastern Europe, a satellite of the USSR. The main character had recently reached the Supreme Council of the Party by being appointed Minister. He has a rich history behind him as a communist fighter and politician. However, one morning, some guys from the secret police arrest him (and others as we later find out), throw him in a cell, try to break his will and make him confess of his unloyalty to the Party, something that he never committed though. Of course it is the Soviets who demanded his imprisonment and confession and the puppet government has to oblige.

We had this film shown at the university here two weeks ago and I really couldn't understand why some guys found it "boring". It showed things that seem really barbarous to us now but they DID happen to MANY people back then. And many of them did not have the influence the character of this film had. I suppose the people who made this criticism judge a movie by how many explosions and cold jokes it has in it but that's not the point here. This movie HAD to have a slow pacing in order to show how hard it is for the days to pass in this madhouse-prison.

The acting is great, especially from Yves Montand and all those actors who play the crazy communist officials :p It's thrilling to see the character's facial expressions change throughout the film showing suspicion at first before he gets arrested... then shock... then despair... and then plain stubbornness and exhaustion. It's obvious that everyone took this film very seriously and thus the great performances! Another thing that surprised me and was also mentioned by the (unfortunately only) other reviewer of this film is that it was shot in 1971. This is noticeable on its own, because it was a time that not only the Soviet Union was still strong (with Brezniev trying to show a "nicer" but also stronger face to the world) but the Communist Party in France had also great support and numbers of voters. I would like to know more about how the French audience reacted when the film was screened for the first time back then...

Overall, it is a movie that I would recommend anyone watching. It is a good and graphic display of how far the demands of power can reach and the paranoid mentality of the Cold War (and it would be wise to remember that this mentality and these incidents did not only take place in the East side but in the West as well). If you find it on VHS (since I doubt that it is released on DVD) just grab it!

I got dragged into this movie like the protagonist got dragged into the brutal, endless interrogation. Given the overall vapidity of most of today's films, this is a real diversion into the power that really lies beneath the surface of movies, the acting, the writing, directing, and most important the mood. The mood of this film drags you like it does the character played by Yves Montand, as he endures a two year interrogation by the people's republic. It's real historic as well, full of details about Titoists, Trotskyites, and anarchists and paranoia over the struggle to control the communist revolution. But Montand looks great as he endures an impressive variety of interrogation techniques.

The split between Tito and Stalin (1948), in the late 1940s and early 1950s, was followed by show trials of prominent Communists all over Eastern Europe and the wave of Stalinist purges in which tens of thousands suffered or lost their lives. This movie is about the 1952 process in Prague, conducted against Rudolf Slánský and 13 other leading members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC). The main protagonist - Anton Ludvik, aka Gerard, is based on Arthur London, veteran of the Spanish Civil War and the French resistance movement, who, at the time of the arrest, was vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia and a senior official of KSC. Display of Stalinist torture and interrogation process in preparation for rigged political trial is very realistic. Based on actual events.

I saw it as a Eastern viewer, knowing , directly, few crumbs of the last decade of Ceausescu regime. I saw it, too, as History teacher. And as one of familiars with the universe of Costa Gavras cinematographic work. It is a pure masterpiece , first for the high dose of truth. Second, for acting. Not the last, for the final part . In essence a try of exorcism. Brutal, honest, precise. Maybe useful.

Anton Ludvik aka Gerard (Yves Montand) is the vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia. He is worried that he's being followed. Other officials are being picked up in a purge. He gets picked up by a dark militaristic organization. His family is harassed. His wife Londonova (Simone Signoret) struggles in her new circumstances. He is psychologically tortured to give false confessions.

This is basically two hours of movie confinement with his jailers doing all kinds of psychological warfare. At times, I feel like being tortured myself. There's good and bad in that. It doesn't make for a pleasant or necessarily a compelling viewing experience. It's more of a compelling academic exercise. This is the cinematic equivalent of stress position. The acting is impeccable and the production is first rate. It's Kafkaesque and a cry against totalitarianism.

Anton Ludvik, aka Gerard, is vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia. He realizes he is watched and followed. One day, he is arrested and put into jail, in solitary confinement. Will be shown the mental tortures during the investigations and how a faithful top-ranking civil servant is made to confess to treason.

A French political thriller based on a real story in Czechoslovakia? Wow! This actually makes a lot of sense. The Czech people do not have many stories told about them, but they do happen to live in an unfortunate area, sandwiched between Germany and Russia. And, as we know, throughout the 20th Century, those two nations liked to assert their influence on the neighbors.

It is so great to see the story here of a man who stood against the Nazis now having to fight back against the politicians he helped support (sort of).

Between this and State of Siege, the early 1970s seemed to be a time when Costa-Gavras really had a thing for movies where Yves Montand got captured/imprisoned.

Of the two, The Confession is probably a little better. It is long, kind of slow, and very repetitive; all qualities I feel apply to Costa-Gavras's films, or it might just be me, because I'm not the biggest fan of his. But the approach he takes works fairly well with the story being told here, and I found it pretty interesting.

I wish it had been a little tighter and maybe closer to two hours than two and a half, but it does always find itself moving forward... albeit slowly at times.

I saw this film last night and it has being going around in my head all day. It builds with a slow intensity which becomes absolutely compulsive. In style it reminded me a lot of The Godfather films. Calm, matter of fact but intensively observed portrayals of almost unbelievably hideous events. It has the same effect - if you stop to watch for just a few seconds, you are irresistibly drawn into the stream of events. Yves Montand is at his down beat best. What struck me most is that this true story of the post-way purges in the USSR's East European client states is of a time and place almost inconceivable to most of us now. The blind belief in The Party, the Inquisition-like mind games of the interrogators that convince the accused that to demonstrate their true loyalty to the Party, they must confess to the most ridiculous accusations of their betrayal of it. And I was surprised to see that it was made in 1971, the feel is absolutely contemporary, even though it depicts such far off events. While I was watching, I was convinced that I knew the story - isn't this the same as Koestler's 'Darkness at Noon'?

I saw that movie many years ago in Germany. Later I saw again the movie in TV in Movies in Time. Since then I am looking all over the internet in order to buy it but it is not possible to find where to buy it. It looks to me that it is a shame that such a good movie disappears and nobody else can see the farce of communism and how these regimes lie to the entire world. If somebody knows where I can buy this movie please e-mail to me. Thanks Sergio. Artur London begin his Book: to my companions of misfortune who where executed although innocent or who died in prison. To all the innocent victims of the trials. To all those friends,known or unknown, who fought and who gave their lives in the hope of achieving a better world. To all those who carry on the struggle to restore humanity to socialism.

Another masterful political psychological thriller rooted in reality from Costa-Gavras.

The story of a falsely imprisoned man, the dangerous of a moralist idealism, corruption in the heart of the machine. As with his every film, a great cinematography is expected and this is no different, reminiscent of Melville films, it manages to capture the harsh conditions this man is put through, the movements are nuanced and subtle but expressive and effective, always guiding our focus and bringing important details to our attention. The fast quick, editing also helps in creating and mirroring the confusion of the passing of time and the dissertation suffered by our protagonist. Despite being confined in small spaces and tight framing this film manages to keep us on the edge throughout the runtime.

This film is a depiction of how dangerous it is to Godify political parties and ideologies. Another main focus is how the systems subverts the meaning of certain words to their own political advantage. Categorization of certain groups of people makes it easier to point the finger at them and condemn them, whether they're innocents or not. Words like Titoist, Trotskyst, Jew, Imperialist lose their meaning and become substitute for the words enemy and traitor. What is innocent ? This film asks, you're not innocent when you're being or ethnicity or ideology paint you as a guilty of treachery. The film also brings to our attention the role of the media and how it can be manipulated by never showing the full picture.

A tale of endurance and of suffering, because no matter what, there will always be someone to tell the tale.

"The Confession" is an uber-bleak film that stars Yves Montand as a loyal member of the Communist party who is turned on and made a scapegoat of when the party becomes paranoid about informers. He is imprisoned and systematically tortured until he admits to crimes against the party he didn't actually commit. Simone Signoret has a much smaller role as his wife, who sees her home invaded by Communist party thugs during the time in which her husband is in prison.

"The Confession" I think provides a good illustration of the pitfalls of Communism, which, despite its merits on paper, rarely works as an actual system. Those who adhere to it feel too persecuted to remain secure for long, and they turn against each other, convinced of double crossings and disloyalty to the party. It reminded me very much of the excellent novel "Darkness at Noon," which similarly examines the ways in which Communism eventually falls apart in practice.

I can't say I necessarily enjoyed "The Confession." It's extremely one-note; the film doesn't really have much of a dramatic arc. It's not able to marry the qualities of political expose and thriller the way another of director Costa-Gavras's classics, "Z," is. But I would still recommend it.

Grade: B+

One of Director Costa-Gavras' trademarks is to bring sensationalism to politics, whether it be Greece, the former Czechoslovakia, Spain, or some other place. He does the same here and for the better part of 2 hours the spectator endures the spectacle of Montand undergoing torture.

L'AVEU is reportedly based on fact. I do not think that such graphic rendering of political torture really teaches any lesson, clarifies any historical issues, or advances any new insights regarding politics. I found MISSING (US 1982), starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, much more effective in terms of communicating the outlaw-ness of a government.

Montand and Signoret deserve the tag of exceptional actors but I cannot help feeling that they were somewhat misused in this in your face torture chamber. A little bit more subtlety and facial expression might have given this film and these actors another - loftier - dimension in their delivery.

I appreciate that Montand and Signoret were out and out communists but their love of political freedom above all convinced them of the need to play the leading roles in this exposé of a communist regime's abuse of justice and its principles, at the altar of partisan interests.

I came away feeling that, yes, the Cold War was a very bad time, that people suffered a great deal, that life can be snuffed out of anybody, even a minister of foreign affairs, at the drop of a pin, but a pinch of subtlety would have made L'AVEU more easily digestible and given my imagination room to fill the blanks.

Worth watching as a time capsule, if you have the stomach.

Here is a French-Italian film by a Greek filmmaker, Costa-Gavras. The film was released in 1970, and stars Yves Montand, with Simone Signoret costarring. The acting is impressive and all the performances are very solid. Stylistically, the film feels similar to Costa-Gavras's last film, "Z", utilizing polished camera-work in what is ultimately a classicist mode of filmmaking that was popular for many political films in the '60s through the mid-'70s, such as Schlondorff's "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum". The cinematography looks quite good, and you would expect as much, given that it was done by the famous cinematographer of the French New Wave, Raoul Coutard, who worked on virtually all of Godard's and Truffaut's early films, as well as "Z".

Like all the Costa-Gavras films I've seen, "The Confession" is a highly political film, delivered from a communist perspective. It's based on a novel by Artur London, in which London details his true-life experiences of being abducted, tortured, and put on trial by the Czechoslovakian government in the early '50s.

The first misconception that must be dispelled is the idea that this is somehow an anti-communist film. It most certainly is not. Many viewers have noted the idea that, unlike "Z", which blatantly glorified communism, "The Confession" is much less politically biased, revealing the faults in both sides of the political spectrum. I have to completely disagree. "The Confession" is just as overtly pro-communist as "Z". Viewers should be reminded that it's not actually communism that Costa-Gavras is attacking in this film. Rather, he's attacking a specific regime in Czechoslovakia that corrupted communism and twisted it into a fascistic, totalitarian entity that, for Costa-Gavras, is not truly communism at all. Stalinism is the target of Costa-Gavras's criticism here, not communism. At no point in the film is the inherent virtue of communism ever brought into question. At most, the film provides a warning, like Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others", regarding how quickly socialism can become fascism, and a reminder of the often thin line that separates the two.

So, while Costa-Gavras is certainly making a critical commentary on the challenges of sustaining a true socialist state, he is never, at any point, questioning the notion that communism is intrinsically righteous and that it remains the ultimate goal toward which humanity and society should strive. That idea is axiomatic in "The Confession" just as it was in "Z". For Costa-Gavras, communism is still infallible, and therefore if something is flawed, then it must not be actual communism (in logic, I believe this is referred to as the "No true Scotsman" fallacy).

In spite of this, I have a lot of respect for what Costa-Gavras did with this film. Yes, it's blindly faithful to the idea of communism, but it is at least willing to concede that communism is, indeed, corruptible. It may be infallible, in Costa-Gavras's eyes, but under the wrong conditions, it can be mutated into something that is fallible. This is sophistry, of course, but that's the point: With "The Confession", Costa-Gavras manages to condemn the corrupting of communism, and the form this corruption took, without ever condemning communism itself. It's a bit of a copout, admittedly, but it's much more than many staunch communists of the day were willing to acknowledge. Much like the protagonist of the film — that is to say, like Artur London himself — Costa-Gavras remains loyal to the idea of communism, in spite of everything he's seen in the events depicted in the film.

So there really is nothing anti-communist here, anymore than it would be anti-Catholic to acknowledge the existence of the Inquisition. An anti-communist film would endeavor to challenge the merits of communism, to doubt its inherent worth. Nothing could be further from the reality of this film. Communism is accepted by Costa-Gavras as an innately righteous entity, and nothing in the film denies that idea. However, Costa-Gavras has at least had the courage to confront the reality that even socialism can make mistakes, and he seems to firmly believe that those mistakes need to be acknowledged and rectified, and not rejected and hidden away from the public eye. Sadly, many communists did not agree. They feared that the film would provide ammunition for anti-communists, and they saw it as an attack on the integrity of communism. They preferred, evidently, that the truth be buried, which is quite hypocritical, since it goes against the very principles of communism, and the idea that, as Antonio Gramsci said, telling the truth is a revolutionary act in itself.

As a result, I appreciate Costa-Gavras's courage in making this film, as I do Artur London's in writing the novel that it's based on. It shows a genuine commitment to one's beliefs, which is something I can deeply respect, whether I share those beliefs or not.

Politics aside, I think most viewers will find this film very entertaining. It tells an intriguing story, it's well acted, and it benefits from impressive direction on Costa-Gavras's part and characteristically high quality cinematography from Coutard. Stripping the film of its communist ideals, what we're left with is a film about an individual bearing the burden of human injustice, and ultimately suffering for maintaining blind loyalty to a cause. It was a loyalty that, when all was said and done, only traveled in one direction. In this way, the film carries thematic similarities to many of the chanbara (samurai) films that Japan churned out in the '60s. So I don't think the communist implications of the film should be much of a turnoff to even the most ardently anti-communist viewers. Other than an unfortunately propagandistic ending, Costa-Gavras makes it easy enough to set all of that aside and interpret the film on much broader terms, if the viewer is so inclined.

RATING: 8.00 out of 10 stars

Excellent movie of what happens to you under a communistic system when it turns on you! Riveting, captivating true story of how high ranking leadership in the communist party are taking down by other higher ranking leaders and of course the system itself. The story doesn't waste much time in getting started so pay close attention as it takes off when you least expect it to. There will be flashbacks that come and go that may throw you off only slightly but if you listen and watch they are handled and put you on track for being taken prisoner yourself! That's right! The viewer is sucked in and kept there and as we watch the methods used in the USSR to break someone's power and will, we will be affected just by association. You have to remember its only a movie at times but real none the less. The lead actor does an excellent job as does the supporting players. Slowly, people who thought they were untouchable and above it all have their worlds shattered. Who can survive? How? That what awaits and more when you tune in here. I kept wondering when will all this subtle and highly sophisticated manipulation of people and facts will end and it doesn't disappoint you when we get there. Some people who had to travel into this system paid for the journey with their lives while others got to live to tell this story. Power corrupts, is an illusion and here you will learn is a form of control. This is where it becomes most effective. The people in this system obey it without question making you ask this question: Are they afraid they will be next? What happens is not a love driven dynamic as we watch it unfold. However we become very glad that we live in America. The USA is not perfect but keep me away from this system at all costs. Highly recommend a tasty drink and a sandwich which by the way is in this movie making you want one. Good sunflower seeds movie as well. Confess now or confess later but one thing is for sure. You will confess

It sounds me better when I watched it on first time in 1992, today l have a nerve to watch it again still knowing all about previously, Yves Montand plays a French Vice-Minister, he is arrested at Iron curtain by his red mates after a suppose suspicious of treachery during his stays at Spain on WW I, all their fellow comrades were in jail too, an overlong process of interrogation takes place, on non-linear storyline Costa-Gravas imposes a disturbing and recurring on exhaustive procedure, Gravas as well-known political director exposes the communist party in his main essence of his existence, control all their affiliates where each other watching themselves, a merry-go-round that never stop, for newcomers like myself when l was around twenty it haunting me so deeply, due I never seen anything like that in my country as witness of course, the own communist establishment collapses on late eighties firstly on the motherrland URSS after all around at Europe, exposing their weakness and flaccidity, as true rotten political regime, the Capitalism was not the better system or the right answer at all, however works due the each one has to pursues his place on the society for own efforts only, whilst on communism nobody gives his best anytime, thus the breakdown is a matter of time, then it reached without mercy to totalitarianism and Marx,Trótski Lenin, Stalin were burired for good!!

Resume:

First watch: 1992 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.5