Il divo (2008)
Il divo (2008)
A Film by Paolo Sorrentino
DVD9 + DVD5 | ISO | PAL 16:9 | Booklet (Italian) -> 28 Mb | 01:52:24 | 7,74 Gb + 3,51 Gb
Audio: Italian DTS @ 755 Kbps and AC3 5.1 @ 384 Kbps | Subtitles: English, Italian, French
Genre: Drama, Art-house | Nominated for Oscar + 17 wins | Italy, France
A Film by Paolo Sorrentino
DVD9 + DVD5 | ISO | PAL 16:9 | Booklet (Italian) -> 28 Mb | 01:52:24 | 7,74 Gb + 3,51 Gb
Audio: Italian DTS @ 755 Kbps and AC3 5.1 @ 384 Kbps | Subtitles: English, Italian, French
Genre: Drama, Art-house | Nominated for Oscar + 17 wins | Italy, France
Award-winning filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (The Family Friend) writes and directs this cinematic portrait of seven-time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti, whose controversial legacy peaked when he was tried for Mafia ties and subsequently acquitted. A leader with close ties to the Vatican, Andreotti was also tried and acquitted for the murder of an Italian journalist, and remains a senator for life.
IMDB
In creating a portrait of a political monster, the trick is to make him or her just appealing enough to hold an audience, without crossing the line into approval. In last year's absorbing Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard and Frank Langella put just enough twinkle in the saturnine mien of Richard Nixon to give him the humanity that cast in sharp relief his epic betrayal of the public trust.
In Il Divo, writer/director Paolo Sorrentino has taken on an even more complex, inscrutable, and ruthless political giant, the former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. Andreotti was at the center of Italian politics for over half a century, and has been accused and sometimes convicted of a raft of crimes ranging from corruption to murder. He was implicated in Italy's notorious Bribesville (Tangentopoli) scandal, and linked to the Mafia. He has accumulated a roster of nicknames including the Sphinx, the Hunchback, the Black Pope, Beelzebub, and of course, Il Divo. As a journalist sums it up in an interview, "You're either the most cunning criminal in the country because you never got caught, or you're the most persecuted man in the history of Italy."
Il divo (2008)
![Il divo (2008)]()
The film takes flight on the brilliant title performance by Tony Servillo (Gomorrah), who plays Andreotti like a mummified Alec Guinness, as if encased in layers of plaster of Paris. With hunched shoulders and hands clamped across his middle or clasped behind his back, he walks at a funereal pace or sits immobile in company, then skitters up and down hallways like an insomniac cockroach late at night. His oversized head features ears that flop like a puppy's, and a face that seems chiseled from a block of stone. Dark eyes glitter flatly behind heavy-rimmed glasses, and his expression seldom alters, except occasionally to allow the thin hint of a sardonic smile. He has, he allows, a sense of humor; he once told a Pope "Excuse me, Your Holiness, but you don't know the Vatican."
Il divo (2008)
![Il divo (2008)]()
The film begins and ends with a series of titles on a black screen, which try to fill an audience in on the scandals, accusations, and legal proceedings that have followed this enigmatic man through a turbulent political career. Don't even try to keep up. It must be dizzying to an Italian audience, for whom the man's name is as much a household word as "Watergate" to Americans; for viewers on this side of the Atlantic, it is like trying to make sense of the international soccer standings. At the outset we witness a series of assassinations, accompanied by a scorecard of names and occupations (banker, journalist, judge) of the victims. You don't need to recognize the players to get a good sense of the lay of the land: this is an Italy in the late 20th century in which the rule of law is little more than a tale told to children.
Il divo (2008)
![Il divo (2008)]()
Andreotti was Prime Minister of Italy seven different times over the last half of the century, and it is with the forming of his seventh government in 1991 that Sorrentino's picture takes up his story. We meet his inner circle, a collection of sharp political operatives, cardinals, and muscle. We learn of the things that torment him, chief among them the assassination of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Moro was kidnapped in 1974 by the Red Brigades, a communist group, and held for nearly two months. The Andreotti government refused to negotiate with the terrorists, and Moro's dead body was found in a parked car on the streets of Rome. The Andreotti of Il Divo tells us he is wracked with regret over the Moro murder. "I vowed to give up ice cream if Moro was released," he reveals to us. "And I have a weakness for ice cream."
Il divo (2008)
![Il divo (2008)]()
Andreotti is a political animal. When a priest in church observes that other politicians pray to God, but he talks to the priests, Andreotti replies "Priests vote. God doesn't." He is thoroughly inscrutable, and ultimately unknowable. When we first see him, he is standing behind a hanging light fixture that obscures his head, giving the illusion of a hunched body topped by a blank thought balloon. He cultivates mystery. At one point he rips a page from a crime novel because "the killer was about to be revealed, I don't want to know." If we don't know him, we are in good company. He is watching television with his wife (the excellent Anna Bonaiuto) when, reassuring him that he is a good man and that "you can't live with a person for so many years and not know him," she realizes with a sudden, frightening insight that she really doesn’t know this man at all.
In another riveting scene, Andreotti sits facing the camera and confesses to a catalogue of crimes, his voice rising, his features quivering, his emotions erupting like Vesuvius. It is the one moment in which he displays overt feeling, and it is apparently a dream; whether the dream is Andreotti's or Sorrentino's, we can't tell.
Il divo (2008)
![Il divo (2008)]()
This is not a political thriller. There is not much in the way of plot. There are plenty of killings, but it's not really a violent movie. The direction is stylish, the photography is dark and beautiful, the music track (ranging from rock to classical) is a powerful ally, and the editing is crisp and complex. But it is Servillo's restrained, impassive performance, like a black hole in the middle of a chaotic, swirling universe, that you will take away from this fascinating portrait of power.
In 1991 Andreotti was made senator for life. At age 90 he is still alive and active.
Il divo (2008)
Special Features:
Disc 1:
- Trailer
Disc 2 (w/o any subs):
- Making Of (30 mins)
- Special Effects (6 mins)
- Il Divo at Cannes Festival (10 mins)
- Paolo Sorrentino Interview (12 mins)
- Photo Gallery
Il divo (2008)
Paolo Sorrentino's films on AvaxHome:
The Consequences of Love (2004) -> Link
The Family Friend (2006) -> Link
Il divo (2008)
All Thanks goes to DasKelineEi.
No More Mirrors.