Film Review: The Confession (l'aveu) 1970

Whether or not totalitarianism is the natural by-product of communism is a matter subject to debate. Although history provides abundant examples that show the two co-existing, certitude regarding whether or not Marxism automatically facilitates authoritarian rule still proves elusive. No more compelling a display of the state's ability to pervert justice, demote loyal partisans to the status of traitors and remove them from the annals of history exists than with the notorious show trials that had characterized Stalin's Soviet Union. With Stalin's grasp extended over Eastern Europe after WWII, the paranoia and zeal for condemnation of the accused that had seized the USSR found itself firmly lodged within the new satellite states. One unfortunate heir of the Stalinist justice system was Czechoslovakia. Zealously rooting out partisans of the late Leon Trotsky, as well as those of the renegade Tito, the ruling apparatchiks devoted themselves to a sanguinary purge in 1952.

One source of information regarding this travesty of justice comes to us from the writings of Artur London, a Czechoslovakian communist who, although having burnished his Marxist credentials with service in the Spanish Civil War, found himself imprisoned by the very power structure whose rise he helped enable. Accused of Trotskyism and ideological alignment with other subversive elements, London found himself the recipient of a brutal reconditioning that sought to break him down into a quivering, apologetic, self-professed enemy of the state. Brought to trial with several other defendants in what came to be known as the Slansky Affair, London was one of the fortunate few who was spared execution.

Costa Gavras, the earnest, if sometimes heavy-handed director of Z, another work regarding the eradication of dissent, has dramatized the plight of Mr. London. Yves Montand, the Italian-born, French leading man fills the role of London -here known as Anton Ludvik-with an intensity that illuminates this decidedly grim story. Brought to "justice" by a group of assailants and subjected to routine brutalization, Montand perfectly displays a man brought down to his very foundations. Equally impressive is the work of Montand's real-life spouse Simone Signoret as his wife, now a societal pariah owing to her husband. The film also heightens the sense of terror felt by the principal in its use of a camera style that captures the sombre, almost monochromatic surroundings that encircle the prisoner and his interrogators.

The Confession is less an indictment of communism than a condemnation of authoritarianism, a theme that Costa Gavras has treated on multiple occasions. What this work of Gavras ultimately gives us is a bleak depiction of justice subverted for expediency. It is a haunting reminder of the societal framework under which millions lived for decades in the aftermath of WWII.

The Confession (French title: l'aveu) (1970)
Directed by Costa Gavras
Color
139 minutes