Cinema: Dialectic Inferno

The Confession is the latest effort of the brilliant Greek director Costa-Gavras, who made Z. The new film is savage, methodical and painstakingly realistic; it is also static, relentless and thoroughly dispiriting. It closely documents the horror of a staged Stalinist purge trial, yet lacks the creative energy to convey the vibrancy of terror.

A crucial problem is that the theme, though powerful, is dreadfully familiar. Based on the autobiographical account of Artur London, former Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Czechoslovakia, Confession follows, moment by agonized moment, the arrest, interrogation, trial...

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