The Day of the Jackal - Fred Zinnemann (1973)

Fred Zinnemann was a film director known for his pronounced aptitude for realism and authenticity. He wanted to become a musician but studied law and became a cameraman due to his passion for the technique. He studied film late in life, in America, and gained notoriety as a noir genre author (although among his successful productions are westerns, adventures, historical dramas, etc.).

"The Day of the Jackal" was considered a precursor to the thriller genre, that mix of suspense, tension, and action that keeps you on the edge of your seat through a story full of interlinked developments, supported by each other, and which puts the viewer to work, forcing them to remember details, nuances, and meanings. But not only that, the adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's novel (itself a huge success) somehow takes the author's journalistic style, the seriousness of documentation, and the rigor of the set giving the impression of a faithful reconstruction. Indeed, "The Day of the Jackal" is built on a true story and faithfully follows the stages of a bizarre case, with many unknowns and which remained hidden from the public until this film; the truth only became clear when Václav Pavel Borovička, a Czech novelist (criminalist/economist), decided to bring it to light with an archival study, with somewhat more interpretations but in a romanticized form.

It is about the most serious attempt on the life of President Charles de Gaulle, against whom 31 attacks were organized, all of them failed; the man died at the age of 79 watching a television show.

Although not shining in grandeur, spectacle, or any spectacular organization, Jackal's plan was the closest to succeeding. A strange last-minute coincidence, however, turned its course. The film does not tell us about it. Focused on consolidating the investigator's position, the detail that led to the discovery of the shooter is not related, but the narrative keeps the rest of the factual truth and honestly mentions that when the president was killed, a bullet had already been fired by the assassin. In separate frames, during the projection, there are 31 images of clocks. It's also an obsession here, Zinnemann inserts such pictures in all his films as a great respect for time; the equality between the number of assassinations and the number of appearances is not accidental.

The novella, "The Day of the Jackal" provoked important ethical debates at the time because, if Frederick Forsyth's volume served as inspiration for the most dangerous terrorist (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known especially by the name Carlos the Jackal, adopted after reading the book), the film quickly became didactic material for spy networks, practitioners of criminal activities, terrorists, and/or general followers. They could learn here about the advantages of withdrawn behavior, disguises, person substitutions, the mode of operation of the police when looking for an individual, how a security device can be thwarted; as they could learn about the existence of professional document forgers, artisanal armament makers, and also about which environments they could be found in.

However, Zinnemann's achievement had other consequences: in France, it triggered significant changes in the regulations for issuing identity documents; in Italy, it introduced a new system for tracking tourists, and in England, it led to the issuance of special provisions for direct deletions from records for the deceased.

This film is simply superb. It is a true course in cinematography and an important lesson on how to make a film. The 143 minutes go by in one breath, and the gradual dosage of the intensity of the events is impeccable. More than the fate of the failed attempt, what impresses anyone is the inventiveness and flexibility of the pursued person, the hidden flaws and fissures of an administrative apparatus with great inertias, and, above all, the perfect anonymity of the assassin whom no one has managed to attribute an identity to, not even vaguely...