Review of Carlos (2010) by Russell S — 01 Sep 2011

Hungry like the (Wikipedia entry for Carlos the) Jackal.

CARLOS (80/100). When the very attractive cast combines in a straight-forward factual telling of the terroristâ(TM)s story with rapid, truncated editing and vivid location shots from exotic locales around the globe, the result is something like a slow-motion Duran Duran video of Carlos the Jackalâ(TM)s Wikipedia entry. (In fact, near the end of the movie, I read ahead in the historical timeline to Carlosâ(TM)s embarrassing problem with varicose veins in his testicles. Sure enough, the scene comes up and plays right through these facts just as one might have anticipated. The only unexpected addition is the suggestion Carlos was having liposuction as well. ).

I managed to watch all 330 minutes of the French-produced, made-for-TV series CARLOS over the course of a couple of days. I am a big fan of the scope of this cinematic genre that really came into its own in the last decade with masterpieces like THE WIRE. Both the full series and the movie edit have been getting great reviews, most of which have cited the brisk editing and fast pace. To me, in fact, the editing was the most interesting part even as the work itself was an inevitable let down after such hype. One of the ways Olivier Assayas keeps a 330-minute movie from feeling boring is doing away with a lot establishing shots and narratives lines, tropes that Iâ(TM)ve really come to despise in traditionally-structured cinema. Iâ(TM)ve almost given up on most conventional movies because the first half often feels like such a waste of time. In addition, Assayas often chooses to cut out of a scene before the large or historic action occurs and cut to real news footage from the time. He employs a similar strategy with small personal details in the story like marriages, births, movement from country to country, changes of allegiance, etc. While it requires a bit more attention from the audience to catch the relevant details after the fact, I ultimately found it more satisfying than the standard alternative of shooting perfunctory expository and denouement scenes. Despite its length, the movie doesnâ(TM)t even deal with anything following Carlosâ(TM)s 1994 capture except in textual epilogue.

Another great success of the movie are the amazing locations. (Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Lebanon London, England, Morocco, Sudan, and Yemen). I think Iraq and Libya may have been the only locations in which action is set but not actually filmed and I think those were only airports scenes. Also the lead actor, Ãdgar Ramírez, is quite good in a bit of method acting that sees him packing on pounds during the course of shooting. He is fluent in Spanish, English, French, German and Italian, all of which he speaks during the course of the movie save the last, and he throws in some phonetic Arabic, Hungarian, and possibly others. Ramírez however does represent one of the real problems with the movie, namely, he and all his co-stars are far too attractive and glamorous, both in their physical appearance and their charactersâ(TM) presentations.

The liposuction is one of the many details that point out the vanity and hypocrisy of Carlos who fancies himself a soldier for the Internationalist revolution all the while living a decadent lifestyle on the fruits of the capitalist West (whisky, cigarettes, his Mercedes-Benz, his expansive residences, etc.) and the ill-gotten cash from his Arab âbrothers in the struggleâ?. The suggestion is that Carlos is a gangster who, like many crooks, has elaborate rationalizations for his lifestyle. There is not much in the way of psychology in this movie. Close-ups do not express inner psychic states. All psychological implications are to be drawn from actions. Carlos is not presented as an artistic avatar of an aspect of a universal human psyche. While I appreciate Assayasâ(TM)s dismissal of easy demonization, I canâ(TM)t help but think his attempted sympathy with his main subject is perhaps misplaced considering Carlosâ(TM)s psychopathology. He also seems to give Carlosâ(TM)s ostensive political justifications far more credence than I do. As Carlos says in an interview in the film, Marxism is the religion he was born into the way some are born Catholic. When he says he fights for the oppressed while drinking with the powerful, one canâ(TM)t help but wonder how much misery from the oppressed is needed to finance his âstruggleâ?. But in the end, the portrait is rightly one of a delusional adrenaline junky who through enormous luck and cold-headed calculation was able to surf the breaking bodies of history without going under himself.