One of my favourite late 1990s action movie surprises was the unassuming Aidan Quinn starring The Assignment, about what happens to the man recruited to act as infamous terrorist Carlos the Jackal’s double. It was a well-made, suspenseful feature that shrouded the terrorist in an air of mystery. Now, Carlos is Olivier Assayas’s multilingual, globe-spanning fictionalised history of Ilich “Carlos” Sanchez, the man who would in the 1970s and 1980s become one the world’s most wanted terrorists. There’s a lot of story to tell, and Assayas retains the integrity of Carlos’s story be telling it over a five hour experience – it was shown on French television as a mini-series before the footage was re-edited into a reportedly gripping two and a half hour movie. I cannot imagine watching Carlos in any other form than its mini-series; I have no idea what one would leave out during editing.
When the story begins, Carlos (Edgar Ramirez) is already a champion for his cause, the liberation of Palestine, and has no problem resorting to bombings and attacks to secure the inviolability of the Palestine state. We see Carlos the family man as well as Carlos the terrorist mastermind, and the film has many characters – all introduced by their name and title for the viewer’s convenience – moving in and out of the story to create a dense narrative; some characters never return while certain others become more prominent. Here, Carlos is also painted as a heedless womaniser, and it becomes clear that he surrounded himself with a string of submissive women who would tolerate much to be in some kind of relationship (mostly sexual) with their Marxist leader.
In a way the second part of Carlos tells of his fall and eventual re-establishing in the world of idealised violence and revolution, while the third part brings the story to an end. Part II spends nearly an hour on the film’s centrepiece: the OPEC raid, a tense, well filmed hostage situation that never becomes “action” and is spellbinding. Part III shows the inevitable: how in terrorism, loyalty is always contingent on political climate, and that Carlos’s vanity as celebrity freedom fighter was as much a driving force for his actions as “Das Kapital”.
Assayas is a sometimes uneven filmmaker – I was barely able to get through Boarding Gate – but here he is a master of his subject. Much of what we see are meetings and discussions, yet Carlos is never boring, always moving forward. Assayas shows restraint in the action oriented parts by often only showing the lead-up and aftermath of an attack, with news broadcasts to fill in details. But the anchor of the film is Edgar Ramirez, who as Carlos creates a believable fictionalised persona of the man, aging twenty years through the course of the film and remains distinctly Carlos. It is one of the best performances in recent memory, with Ramirez never resorting to De Niro-like mumbling or Pacino-esque wild haired shouting.
Carlos is very long but very rewarding. Those who liked Munich would do well to seek it out.
When the story begins, Carlos (Edgar Ramirez) is already a champion for his cause, the liberation of Palestine, and has no problem resorting to bombings and attacks to secure the inviolability of the Palestine state. We see Carlos the family man as well as Carlos the terrorist mastermind, and the film has many characters – all introduced by their name and title for the viewer’s convenience – moving in and out of the story to create a dense narrative; some characters never return while certain others become more prominent. Here, Carlos is also painted as a heedless womaniser, and it becomes clear that he surrounded himself with a string of submissive women who would tolerate much to be in some kind of relationship (mostly sexual) with their Marxist leader.
In a way the second part of Carlos tells of his fall and eventual re-establishing in the world of idealised violence and revolution, while the third part brings the story to an end. Part II spends nearly an hour on the film’s centrepiece: the OPEC raid, a tense, well filmed hostage situation that never becomes “action” and is spellbinding. Part III shows the inevitable: how in terrorism, loyalty is always contingent on political climate, and that Carlos’s vanity as celebrity freedom fighter was as much a driving force for his actions as “Das Kapital”.
Assayas is a sometimes uneven filmmaker – I was barely able to get through Boarding Gate – but here he is a master of his subject. Much of what we see are meetings and discussions, yet Carlos is never boring, always moving forward. Assayas shows restraint in the action oriented parts by often only showing the lead-up and aftermath of an attack, with news broadcasts to fill in details. But the anchor of the film is Edgar Ramirez, who as Carlos creates a believable fictionalised persona of the man, aging twenty years through the course of the film and remains distinctly Carlos. It is one of the best performances in recent memory, with Ramirez never resorting to De Niro-like mumbling or Pacino-esque wild haired shouting.
Carlos is very long but very rewarding. Those who liked Munich would do well to seek it out.
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