Introducing State of Siege

Shahim Sheikh

The final film screened as part of ‘Screening Vulnerability’ was Costa-Gavras’s 1972 film, ‘State of Siege’, under the category of ‘Human Rights’. The movie is set in a fictional iteration of Uruguay (the country itself is never named), where an American bureaucrat, sent by his country to secretly conduct torture training for the local police as a counterinsurgency measure, is kidnapped by rebels to negotiate the release of political prisoners. With the city in a state of emergency as local authorities try to figure out how they will alleviate this situation, discourse between the kidnapped bureaucrat and his kidnappers is ignited about the extent and morality of American involvement in Latin American politics.

One of the first filmmakers to be specifically categorized as ‘political’, Costa-Gavras was instrumental in bringing attention to film as a medium of dissidence. In ‘State of Siege’, he brought to light, how deeply the United States of America was involved in the fall and rise of Latin American governments, alongwith the brutal measures it adopted in its war against communism. The film puts up a picture of the vulnerable nature of human rights in a state of emergency, as well as how malleable they are in States practicing political absolutism. Legal sanction of human rights violation as part of state policy was a fear across the globe during the Cold War, which Costa-Gavras brought attention to through ‘State of Siege’, alongside a host of other films he made around this time like ‘Z’ and ‘The Confession’, making it the first ever film to be unabashedly critical of American foreign policy and international practices. The film was shot in Chile in what seems prophetic in retrospect as a year later, the nation fell prey to a coup d’etat openly supported by the Nixon administration. Choosing ‘State of Siege’ for the series was made easy by the fact that the film, while being quite clear about its political stance, nonetheless also presents a fairly neutral look at how political extremism on any end of the spectrum is bound to be a failure in the long-term.

Language and Violence in Costa-Gavras’ State of Siege

Arjun Raj V

Costa-Gavras’ 1972 film State of Siege depicts the role language plays in creating and perpetuating vulnerabilities among the population of a nation-state during a period of emergency. The movie demonstrates how language is not just an instrument that facilitates violence but is violence in and of itself. One of the earliest acts of violence in the film is committed in language at a place and time far away from the actual setting of violence: it figures as a justification of the neo-imperialist project concocted by the United States. The linguistic acts that legitimise the neo-imperialist aspirations compromise the sovereignty of both the postcolonial state and its subjects. These linguistic acts deem specific populations as lacking rights; subsequently, they are subjected to torture. Ironically, the state of siege, which is essentially effected through a linguistic move, further renders certain aspects of language itself vulnerable. The censorship that ensues forecloses the currency of certain words in language. The censorship of words like “political prisoners” that are imperative in the identification of various classes of citizens means these individuals are now kept outside the economy of recognition. Thus, the question of their rights never reaches fruition. Language is also used to misrecognise classes of citizens: the protestors against imperialist interventions are deliberately called “terrorists” to delegitimise their cause. Then, language in and of itself acts as a site of violence; it can commit and sustain violence on bodies far away from the places they inhabit.

Nayana N R

State of Siege is an indictment of the United States’ imperialist intervention in the affairs of the South American countries. This article attempts to enumerate the vulnerabilities of various groups of people that stem from the imperialist policies of the US.

The imperial policies of the US are revealed when the urban guerrillas question Santore (USAID official). The urban guerrillas constitute a body that functions parallel to the native government. The people are then subjected to three different power structures which function more or less like governments. The three structures – the US officials and their authority, the government in power, and the urban guerrillas – make the common masses as well as themselves vulnerable in their competition for power.

The vulnerability of the US officials and their family resembles the situation of the British in India during the colonial period. The English precarity that one finds in the texts of Julia Inglis and others resonates in the rhetoric of the lady who is presiding over a meeting attended by Santore’s wife when she says, “we as well as our husbands are supposed to stand for our civilization, for our ideals…it’s not always easy. Some of these countries are difficult, often hostile.”

Santore is trying to classify the masses as deserving and undeserving when he says, “real men have choice” to justify the American intervention. This kind of a classification points towards the idea of “palliative imperialism” which will only amplify the vulnerability of some over the other. In this case, the ones who choose to become rebels are more vulnerable as the two other structures of power – the government in power and the imperial authority – are against them.

The power structures make people vulnerable as these are equally inhuman towards all: Santore, rebels, and the people. People, irrespective of their ideology or belonging, become fungible before  power structures.

Exploring Human Rights and Vulnerability in Costa Gavras’ State of Siege

Rukmini Sanyal

The opening scenes of Costa-Gavras’ 1972 political drama State of Siege plunge viewers into a landscape where state authorities are engaged in searching and inspecting vehicles on the roads for the body of Philip Michael Santore, a US counterinsurgency agent who was kidnapped by a guerrilla group a few days before. The scenes demonstrate that the people are subjects in an ‘insecurity state,’ where rights and liberties are arbitrarily taken away and everyone within the State is primarily defined as a potential suspect. People are searched at gunpoint and their movement is severely restricted, showcasing their subjecthood in a biopolitical paradigm where human rights are vulnerable to misuse and negation.

In the film, the Latin American country is under siege from the Tupamaros group, but due to the authoritarian State’s mechanisms in suppressing their presence, the rights of ordinary citizens too are put under siege. Throughout the film, there are multiple instances of extra-judicial killings orchestrated by US-trained police officials who rampage through the city, killing students and organising mass shootouts all in the name of maintaining ‘civil order.’ The State, as primary upholder of the rights of its citizens, instead renders them insignificant in its quest to suppress the guerrillas. The film therefore, prompts the viewers to question the security of human rights in a State where torture is rationalised and personal autonomy is abused in favour of political motives.

Note on État de siege (State of Siege) (1972), Costa-Gavras

Laboni Mukherjee

Costa-Gavras’s 1972 film État de siege (State of Siege) reveals the entanglement of human rights and citizenship. The director’s version of a totalitarian state implicitly accords and denies citizenship to its people, leaving all of them vulnerable to human rights violations. The precarity of the people’s (especially dissenters’) citizenship is foregrounded through several scenes – body and car searches at gunpoint, branding the rebel group as “unnameables” (symbolically striking their names off the roster of citizens), extra-judicial killings of political suspects and so on. Standing out from these precarious subjects is the vulnerability of agents of the American government like Philip Michael Santore. As a political hostage, Santore’s citizenship is invoked repeatedly throughout the film; it is his main identifying marker in government communications and the primary bargaining chip of the rebel group. However, his citizenship is terminated when the government and the U.S. ambassador refuses to negotiate with the rebels, implying the removal of the United States’s obligations to protect him against human rights violations (like death). Further, in the film, a person’s citizenship is sanctioned not only by the government but also by the rebel group, who posit themselves as a rival “government” of sorts. Citing Santore’s heavy involvement in the government’s rampant human rights violations, including killings and torture, the rebel group “punishes” him by “executing” him. From their side, they are not guilty of any human rights violation, because they are depriving Santore of his life (and his citizenship and claim to human rights) on account of his criminality by due process of Justice (depicted by Gavras through the rebels “voting” in the bus). The political hostage resides, therefore, in a liminal space between citizenship and non-citizenship.