Why the political thriller “Missing” is still urgent and relevant

Ken Loach's contribution to 11′09″01the anthology film about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, recalls an earlier tragedy that occurred on the same date. On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected Salvador Allende in a military coup, ushering in a brutal dictatorship that lasted until 1990.

The savagery that marked Pinochet's reign is already evident in the events described in Costa-Gavras' novel. Missing (1982). Set in the immediate aftermath of the coup, Missing explores the disappearance of American journalist Charles (John Shea) and the efforts of his wife and father to find him.

Missing can be rented from Prime Video. Like that of Costa-Gavras Battle of Algiers And Z, Missing has a documentary-style narrative, thriller-level tension, and a clarity about political engagement that is absent from the films it inspired.

Thomas Hauser's investigative book The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice serves as the basis for a film that questions America's direct involvement in the coup. More than the Chileans who round up dissidents at will in the streets, Missing targets the amoral role America plays in pursuing its strategic interests.

After Charles' wife Beth (Sissy Spacek) fails to locate him, Charles' father Ed (Jack Lemmon) arrives in Santiago. Ed is an all-American conservative businessman who is horrified to learn that Charles has been involved in what Ed calls “anti-establishment paranoia.” Through his frequent arguments with Beth, who is politically opposed, Ed rediscovers a son he never really knew.

American diplomats in Santiago, unable to get rid of Ed, lead him down a wrong path. Ed and Beth persevere, meeting other unjustly targeted activists and visiting prisons filled with horrors that have been documented in Latin American literature.

Costa-Gavras's talent for revealing the reality of the situation without resorting to shock or artifice is at its peak in the simplest scenes. Missing in Mexico, which convincingly depicts a city overrun by soldiers and characterized by fear.

In one memorable scene, soldiers randomly shoot a galloping horse. A long sequence in a makeshift morgue bluntly exposes the extent of the atrocities committed by Pinochet with the support of the United States.

Missing has an emergency that lasted beyond its period. The official Orwellian jargon spouted by the Americans will seem familiar to Indians who followed the Bhima-Koregaon affair or the prolonged incarceration of Umar Khalid. The despair of the family of the missing journalist still resonates today.

Costa-Gavras' talent for humanizing politics is particularly evident in the tenderness that unfolds alongside violence. Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon are both terrific, with Lemmon pulling off Ed's personal evolution particularly well.

Ed's frustration with Beth is as understandable as their final understanding is heartbreaking. Ed arrives in Santiago as a father looking for his son. He leaves as a political activist, a painful but necessary transformation if we are to learn a lesson from Chile's assault on democracy, Costa-Gavras suggests.

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