As political thriller, ‘Z’ gets an A

The return of the Oscar-winning 1969 political thriller “Z” offers the chance to revisit a landmark international hit on its 40th anniversary.

Even better, it serves as a reminder that the struggle between individual rights and a repressive regime is eternal, no matter the setting or the players.

“Z” is a thinly fictionalized account of a real-life Greek political murder and coverup that was exposed by a fearless magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant in his star-making turn).

Constantine Costa-Gavras and his team were not allowed to film in Greece, then under right-wing military junta rule, so they substituted Algeria. To have Mikis Theodorakis’ music, they spliced together bits and pieces of past scores since he was under house arrest in Greece.

Yves Montand, even then a French icon with a lengthy history of support for left-wing causes, stars as the martyred politician. It’s necessarily a brief role whose impact is made simply by his appearance.

That goes as well for Irene Papas as his Jackie Kennedy-style widow; Papas, a Hollywood veteran since the mid-’50s, was the only actual Greek in the large cast.

Using Hollywood’s classic gangster movies as a model for its relentless pace, Costa-Gavras made his reputation with “Z,” which won Academy Awards for editing and Best Foreign Language Film and received nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

What “Z” looks like today is an extremely well-made character study as Trintignant’s bulldoglike jurist interrogates witnesses until they’re trapped by their own words.

One poignant period note is the Greek colonel’s fury at the sight of long hair. One of the more telling moments in the realistic clashes between police and civilian protesters comes when a cop takes out a pair of scissors and starts cutting the Beatles-style hair of a gangly kid being pinned down by his cohorts.

Standouts in the well-cast ensemble include the loathsome, gay assassin played by Marcel Bozzuffi, who would go on the following year to become the poster guy for “The French Connection,” and Jacques Perrin as the wily photojournalist who leads the magistrate on his way, much like someone leaving cheese to capture a rat.