Synopsis
State of Siege (État de siège, 1972) is Costa-Gavras' political thriller, and you can watch online a film that treats kidnapping as a courtroom for an entire system. Yves Montand plays Philip Michael Santore, a US official sent to a Latin American country supposedly to advise on traffic and communications. One morning his car is boxed in on the street, and urban guerrillas drive him and a Brazilian diplomat off to a hiding place.
From there the story splits in two. In a cramped room, Tupamaro rebels question their prisoner, and the interrogation slowly exposes what his real job has been: training local police in surveillance and torture. Outside, the state bares its teeth — roadblocks, raids, students hauled in — all to get its man back. Costa-Gavras builds the tension out of phone calls, dossiers and blank bureaucratic faces rather than gunfights.
Jorge Semprún's screenplay grew out of the real abduction and killing of US adviser Dan Mitrione in Uruguay; the names are changed, yet an opening title warns that any resemblance is no accident. The cold, near-documentary style and Mikis Theodorakis' score turn a political argument into something that genuinely grips. This one doesn't comfort you — it asks hard questions and refuses the easy answer. Stream State of Siege (1972) online on iFILM.
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