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Section spéciale

Section spéciale

Movie · 1975 · 15 people

Section spéciale (Special Section) is Costa-Gavras's courtroom drama from 1975. A French-language co-production between France, Italy and Germany, it runs about 118 minutes. Costa-Gavras wrote the screenplay with Jorge Semprún, working from Hervé Villeré's book L'affaire de la Section Spéciale. The title refers to the "special sections" of Vichy France.

The story is set in 1941 in France under German military occupation. The Vichy government sets up a special court to try Resistance fighters, or people merely suspected of being part of the Resistance. The film follows the creation and workings of that court, building the tension between justice and political pressure inside a trial setting. The cast includes Louis Seigner, Roland Bertin, Michael Lonsdale, Ivo Garrani, François Maistre, Jacques Spiesser, Henri Serre, Heinz Bennent and Claude Piéplu, with Pierre Dux, Jacques François, Michel Galabru, Jean Bouise, Julien Guiomar, Yves Robert and Bruno Cremer also among the actors.

The film shared the best director prize at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign film and was also recognised in the U.S. National Board of Review's foreign film selection. In Germany it is known as Sondertribunal – Jeder kämpft für sich allein.

DirectorCosta-Gavras

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Michael Lonsdale Michael Lonsdale Actor · died at 89 Michel Galabru Michel Galabru Film actor · died at 93 Louis Seigner Ivo Garrani François Maistre Pierre Dux Claude Piéplu Roland Bertin Jacques Spiesser Heinz Bennent Jacques François Jean Bouise Julien Guiomar Yves Robert Bruno Cremer

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Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The special courts set up in 1941 in German-occupied France are among the darkest pages of the Vichy regime, and the film tells this real history from Hervé Villeré's book. What makes it striking is that it shows the injustice not as the occupier's doing but as a system built by France's own government: in a court that tries even people merely suspected of Resistance ties, law becomes a tool of political pressure. That question reaches well beyond 1940s France and applies to any era that debates the independence of justice. It makes you think not by lecturing but by showing, step by step, how the court is built and how it works.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Costa-Gavras, with co-writer Jorge Semprún, turns the courtroom into a space of suspense, and the best director prize he shared at Cannes rewarded that command. By tracing step by step how an institution is created and how it operates, the film is less a classic courtroom drama than an anatomy of procedure. But that approach has a cost: the huge ensemble, from Louis Seigner to Michel Galabru, leaves no single character with lasting emotional weight, so the viewer bonds with the mechanism rather than with people. The talk that comes naturally with a trial setting and the roughly 118-minute running time may tire an impatient viewer. For lovers of cool, documentary-flavoured political cinema, though, it is an essential stop.

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

A valuable film for anyone looking for the serious, dignified tone of 1970s political cinema. Rather than showy style, it draws its strength from a solid script and a cast full of seasoned French actors. For me its most precious quality is its moral centre: throughout, the question echoes of which way a person caught between orders and conscience will fall. It belongs to the tradition of the great old courtroom dramas in which justice is weighed in a single room, a fine reminder for viewers with the patience to carry that weight.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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