#498

Z should be retitled Zzzzzzzzz's. It put me right to sleep.

The Deputy, a peace activist, is scheduled to give a lecture. He runs into some problems finding a place to speak and then is assassinated. The rest of the movie is a long procedural detailing the cover-up of the assassination and the lack of justice brought against anyone involved.

I've wanted to see the film ever since first reading Ebert's review a few years ago. Re-reading Ebert's review, I've found the key sentence:

It is a film of our time.

Z is very much about a specific political moment. These sorts of things still happen all the time across the earth, so, in that respect, Z is still relevant, but I think that Z is too tied to events in Greece and expresses such an indignant anger that it's difficult to divorce the film from its specific time and specific critique of a specific regime in a specific place.

I wish it were otherwise, but instead of being moved to anger, I was dreadfully bored and allowed myself a couple of nice short naps, waking up long enough to discover anew that there was still injustice in the world, not the least of which may be having to sit through Z all the way to the disappointing end.