Il Divo
You don’t need to bone up on three-to-four decades of dense Italian politics before consuming the sordid biopic Il Divo. But it helps. Concerning Giulio Andreotti—the crooked and much-connected three-time prime minister, lifetime senator and all-around scoundrel—Paolo Sorrentino’s keyed-up biopic is constantly chucking names, titles and bloody bodies your way. To Italians, presumably, this is everyday news; think of it as their version of Oliver Stone’s W.
But as Americans, let the plethora of names go in one ear and out the other. The only character who matters is Andreotti, played—or, more accurately, embodied—by Toni Servillo (late of Gommorrah, another impenetrable Italian crime opus). And Sorrentino has but one thing to say about him: He’s a living, wheezing model of privilege and rot, hollowed out through corruption and power.
Andreotti, who just turned 90, has been sleazily acquitted of many of the film’s charges, which are put forth with little mind for social decorum. He stormed out of a screening of the film in a huff, which is unexpected, actually: Like a Euro Dick Cheney, Andreotti is known to chuckle at his infamy, joking that the only thing he isn’t blamed for is the Punic Wars, which preceded him. Wasn’t he secretly flattered when an analog popped up in the third Godfather?
A lot happens in Il Divo, usually involving either clandestine arrangements or gunplay. But they all add up to the same insight: Andreotti has become so ingrained in his mafia connections and puppet-master status that he’s become inured to it.
Servillo’s performance barely qualifies as a performance; he “acts” by barely acting. He speaks a maddening dead calm. He rarely moves a muscle. Shellacked, his Andreotti resembles a wax figure, either of Murnau’s Nosferatu in a pricey suit or Alan Greenspan after being dried too long in the sun. His jowls are epic; the tops of his gelatinous ears droop down as though designed by Tex Avery.
Who needs anything else when you’ve got this uncanny symbol? I mean that only slightly sarcastically. Il Divo shares with W. a disgust-cum-empathy for its cloistered baddie, and after overloading on events and supporting characters slowly turns subjective and nightmarish. Andreotti’s in a lonely hell, Sorrentino posits, and the director’s camera swoops, dives, charges and presses into its hideous subject, all to sell its fairly smug reductionist-therapeutic thesis. Deterministically, proudly, Il Divo is one-note. But whatta note.
COMMENTS
ADD COMMENT
MORE
Article:
Six Songs More Famous Than the Movies From Which They Originate
Article:
Will Smith Reprises His Role as Agent J in the Unasked-For Three-quel to "Men in Black"
Article:
A Boy Hopes to Reunite His Family in "I Wish"
Article:
"Polisse" Follows the Impassioned Members of a Child Protection Unit in Paris
Article:
"Battleship" is a Cobbled Together Junkyard of Stolen Scenes
Article:
"The Dictator" is Sacha Baron Cohen’s Least Fleshed-Out Role
Article:
An Eternal Bachelor Goes on Dates With Elderly Ladies in "Bernie"
Article:
A Girl Goes on a Series of Dates to Scientifically Prove Her Fiance's Sincerity in "Losing Control"
Share this Story: