Il Divo (Paolo Sorrentino, 2008): Italy

Reviewed by Hrair Panossian. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

In these days of economic crisis and politics we need to have people that are going to bring the world out of it, people that want to change the world, to make it a better place. We’ll see if Obama is able to do this. And on the other hand, we have people that only cause more war and injustice in the world, like George W. Bush and Robert Mugabe, just to name a few. This brings me to the person in the very well directed movie by Paolo Sorrentino named Giulio Andreotti, who was, probably, the most corrupt man in the history of Italian government.

The film Il Divo is about the very controversial former Prime Minister of Italy, Giulio Andreotti. Andreotti served parliament since 1943, after the fall of fascism, and has been the Prime minister of Italy three times. He is known for his involvement with the Mafia but he always denied it, even though he is seen with mafiosi very often. Another very interesting fact about this man is that, although he has been charged with various mafiosi crimes, he has never been convicted at his age of 90 years today. In the movie we see Andreotti go through his everyday life, meeting citizens, family, government and the Mafia, and really see how he is one of the most powerful men in Italy at the time. The meetings with the Mafia occurs many times in the movie and we really get to see exactly how involved he is with the underground mafiosi. He seems to be a man with no conscience whatsoever, but who is very strict with his manners; this character actually made me laugh many times in the movie with his really funny remarks.

This movie is like “The Godfather” but with a lot politics  involved, because he is the Prime Minister. I really liked the cinematography and the whole plot of the movie; it really spoke to me. Why? Because it was so elegantly shot! The lighting and the music was really exceptional–the camera angles and the zooming were elegant! The one thing that I didn’t like about the movie, and that really annoyed me, is that there were so many people to keep track of. There were all these Italian names that pretty much sounds about the same, and they all had different nicknames like “The Fish”; with all of these names, it all became a big mess. I couldn’t tell if I’ve seen that guy before or not. But I do know that this was an important movie, especially for the Italians because there is still a lot of corruption and many Mafia-linked politicians in the country–many known, and many unknown.

All in all, I think that it was definitely a movie worth watching, but that’s my opinion. I could tell that many others in the theatre didn’t have the same opinion as me. It was entertaining, and the actor Toni Servillo did an amazing job.  I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Go see this movie if you are into politics, like mafia movies or just for sheer entertainment!