This is Costa Gavra's finest film. Not only its message, and the brilliant actor's are world class. Also the cinematography, the script and the cut. Yves Montand's character is one of his strongest performances in his whole career. The whole cast is great. The guerrilla's as well as the secret police and the army generals. And of course the legend of German Cinema, O.E.Hasse as the intellectual journalist investigating the truths behind the kidnappings. State of Siege is probably not 100% objective but it shows the truth exactly. It's not speculative, naive or heroizing at all. a true intellectual film, but as exiting and riveting as a perfect Hollywood blockbuster. It's actually a quite cold blooded view at the history of that era. The story plays in an anonymous country in Latin America, and that's a great move by Costa Gavras because the events shown in the film did happen the same way not only in all countries of Latin America but also in many other countries all over the world. I had to leave Turkey after the coup d'etat in 1980 and I can tell you that the situation in Turkey then was exactly identical to the events that take place in this film. The dark atmosphere, the oppression and the violence are always the same. I watch this movie every time it's screened on German TV. And that's at least once a year. Z is another flawless masterpiece by Costa Gavras, and much more popular than State of Siege. But State of Siege has a melancholic atmosphere that I love so much. So it's not only a great experience for politically interested viewers. Also I want to mention that there's NO American movie in the same quality. and modern cinema is not able to produce such fantastic movies anymore.

State of Siege (1973) was another classic film from Greek film maker Costa-Gavras. This time the director turns his attention to Latin America. The C.I.A. is running things in South America, one of their fronts is a fake corporation. A group of left wing rebels decide to kidnap the head of A.I.D. Phillip Santore (Yves Montand). During his capture, the rebel leader talks to the captured government official and tries to learn why the C.I.A. is in Uruguay and why they're training the local police in brutal torture tactics. He never learns why they want to suppress left-wing politics because Mr. Santore has become expendable. The American and Uruguay officials don't want to deal with the "terrorists" and don't mind losing one of their own because he can always be replaced. Too bad the rebels don't learn that fact. The military crushes the rebels and to his word, the U.S. Government replaces Santore with another A.I.D. official.Another great film from Costa-Gavras. He utilizes the film techniques that he used in Z and exploits them even further. This film caused even more controversy because the film was based on a true story. Bewarned, the torture techniques that the U.S. advisers teach the Uruguay officials are real graphic and gruesome. It's a shame that this movie has been neglected for so many years. But film makers like Oliver Stone were highly influenced by this movie. Maybe some day State of Siege will be restored and released on video. It's a real hard film to get a hold of.Highest recommendation possible.

This is not a fiction film. In fact, it reveals the way the guerrilla movement Tupamaros acted in Uruguay during the 70s. For those young people, it is necessary to remind that this left-wing movement was not a guerrilla in the mountains but an urban one, operating mainly in Montevideo. They used to kill esbirros (nasty policemen and agents) and to make justice against the existing dictatorship whenever it was required. The movement operated in a secret and compartmented way, i.e. many of the members did not know each other, thus avoiding to be eliminated by denunciation. Costa Gavras was able to draw the way Tupamaros acted in Uruguay, and also an important happening of those days, the way the CIA agent Mr. Dan Mitrione (Yves Montand) was killed. In fact this movement was disarticulated once new police agents infiltrated in the movement, and the main leaders were discovered. Mitrione was killed but this did not prevent that another CIA "pinch-hitter" for Mitrione came later to replace the dead man. The film may seem as sympathetic to Tupamaros, partially it might be, but this is rather a subtle critic to their methods than congratulation for what they did.

In May, 2002 they are fulfilled 30 years of the beginning of the filming of this movie in several leases of Chile (Santiago, Viña del Mar, Valparaíso and Playa Ancha). It was in the second year of the socialistic government of the President Allende and the tension that is perceived in the movie was the one that already was living through the country a year before the military coup of 1973. The Chileans only we could see this movie 2001 and in an alone cinema-art in Santiago that exhibited it for two weeks. In May, 2002 the channel of French cable TV5 exhibited "State of Siege" four times, which has allowed a deeper critical review and to recognize a series of places of the Chile of 30 years ago, which already do not exist or which are now deeply modified. Besides the climate of the epoch there is perceived the precarious or simple car equipment that Chileans were having in that epoch in which the cars of luxury were the Dodge Dart Chrysler (assembled in the northern port of Arica) and the Peugeot 404 (assembled in Los Andes, 100 kms. from Santiago). The car of the well-off middle class was the Fiat 125 and en their juvenile sectors the ideal was a Mini Austin 850. In the installed middle class there were meeting old Renault 4S (the "renolas" o "renoletas"), VW beetles, Simca 1000 and principally the popular one Citroen 2CV, known like "citroneta" o "citrola". The movie allows to see brief the juvenile or young faces of approximately 30 actors, the majority today mature and well known and to wonder for the identities of others that probably retired, they did not come back from exile or were murdered or disappear during the dictatorship. In short an intelligent and nervous "thriller", in "Z" style, which showing the hard political reality of Uruguay between 1970 and 1972. The film allows a nostalgic look and indicative on the Chile that was on the way to disappear due the Coup d'Etat of 11 of september, 1973.