Review of Carlos (2010) by Thaddaeus H — 01 Sep 2011

My favorite Olivier Assayas' movie, but keep in mind I have only seen Demon Lover and Clean. This movie to me is a perfect marriage between Sodenburgh and Tarantino with an edge over both in the soundtrack department. Assayas who uses Kim Gordon in one movie, and has Sonic Youth score another (Demon Lover), gets the most from his soundtracks and relies them to really contribute and sustain his visual and dramatic environments. It may come off too hipster or cool for some, hence the Tarantino association. Wire was originally tapped to do the entire score, but they felt that their music would become too closely associated with making the idea of terrorism cool.

This French mini-series does romanticize Illich Ramirez Sanchez aka Carlos a bit, and somewhat promotes him as exuding the ultimate rock star personae. If you can prevent from getting offended by this notion and take it for what it is without going all Tobey Keith and shit, then this movie is amazing. I have compared it to the pistachio gelato in terms of its similarities to Sodenburgh's "Che". The pistachio gelato (Carlos) taste, in some bizarre way, better and more like a pistachio than the pistachio itself (Che). Also, my buddy Ben tells me that Criterion is set to release this in all of its 6 hours of splendor. I also voted this as my favorite film of 2010, and some more notable critics than myself have been quoted as saying that it deserved the academy award for best picture but couldn't qualify since it aired as a French mini-series and wasn't promoted as a conventional motion picture. Too bad.

-Thaddaeus Hudson.