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But if Z distorts some of the facts of contemporary Greece to suit its own purposes, it succeeds in conveying much of the stifling atmosphere of that country today. The insular patriotism, simple-mindedness and dictatorial methods of the colonels are devastatingly captured, if in caricature. Their bumptious puritanism is neatly depicted in the film's opening sequence in which the military brass are assembled for indoctrination. A rightist general compares the disease afflicting the grapes of Greece with the sickness assaulting the body politic: party factionalism, overfree speech, alien ideas. The military, he announces, must serve as the antibodies to repel this dread invasion. What's good for plants, in other words, is good for people.
Bitter Postscript. Though the colonels were not participants in the murder, as Z suggests, they have nonetheless provided some intriguing postscripts to the trial that would be worthy of inclusion in the film. They reinstated and promoted the six police officers who had been sacked for their part in the murder and then retired them on pension.
The brave young prosecutor, whose real-life name is Christos Sartzetakis, had been elevated to a judgeship because of his work in the case. In 1968, the colonels dismissed him from the bench, along with 29 other judges, for "political bias and failure to uphold the prestige of the judiciary." When Lambrakis was killed in Salonica, another deputy, George Tsarouhas, was brutally beaten. In 1968, Tsarouhas was arrested by the junta for subversive activities. On the way to police headquarters in Salonica, he died. According to the official police report, he had suffered a "heart attack."