Quickie: Z

Toute ressemblance avec des évènements réels, des personnes mortes ou vivantes n'est pas le fait du hasard.

English subtitle: Any similarity to actual persons or events is deliberate.

I mentioned buying the book "Z" a couple months ago – I finished reading it before Goshen, and watched the movie today. The above is the exact quote from the screen, at the end of the opening credits.

"Z" is a peculiarly interesting example of book-to-movie transition. I have both seen and read (though rarely in that order) "The Shipping News", "Hart's War", "The Great Escape", "The Postman", and doubtless a few others whose names escape me now. "The Shipping News" was a singularly ineffective translation – a mediocre movie out of a spectacular novel – and every other one on my list had their plots significantly altered for the silver screen. Some (e.g. Mom) would disagree with me about how significantly in some cases, but they all underwent major revision.

"Z" was different. I don't know if it's like the Dune movie – incomplete – and I'm just filling in gaps in the movie from knowing the book, but somehow the scriptwriter(s) of "Z" found ways to imply enough, and drop enough repetition of ideas, and enough unneeded ideas, to bring most of what I got from Vassilis Vassilikos's book into itself.

A remarkable film.