Il Divo

Colour, 35 mm
Italy, 2008, 118 min
Section: Open Eyes

Synopsis

“Il divo” means “the divine”, which is how Italians ironically refer to the man who stepped up onto their political stage in 1946 and hasn’t altogether left it since. Going on for 90, Giulio Andreotti, Christian Democrat and devout Catholic, who has headed the Italian government seven times and is a senator for life, is an enigmatic figure closely bound to the history of post-war Italy. This brilliant portrait of Andreotti won director Paolo Sorrentino the Jury Prize in Cannes this year. The subject of the filmmaker’s antipathy and fascination is a politician who navigated life without ever coming into conflict with the mafia (while they eliminated many of his colleagues and fellow party members), and who even managed to fend off charges of corruption. Superbly portrayed by Tony Servillo, the “divine Giulio” is a mysterious figure, even physically resembling a puppet who voluntarily defers all that is human, including his conscience, in the interests of his boundless ambition. “This is a malicious film, I am not that cynical,” was Giulio Andreotti’s reaction when he saw the biopic. Nonetheless, in keeping with the self-composed opportunism that has always aided his steep rise to political fame, he added that he does not intend to sue the filmmaker.

About the director

Paolo Sorrentino (b. 1970, Naples, Italy) worked as a scriptwriter with Neapolitan stage and film directors and in 1998 made the short film Love Has No Confines (L’amore non ha confini), for which he won awards at home and abroad. He was also involved as a writer in the TV series La squadra (2002) before making his first feature film One Man Up (L’uomo in più), screened in the competition at Venice in 2001 and a year later at Karlovy Vary. The film won a series of awards, as did Sorrentino’s next film, The Consequences of Love (Le conseguenze dell’ amore, 2004), which was selected for the competition at Cannes, as was his latest film, Family Friend (2005 – Horizons KVIFF 2006). He competed in Cannes for the third time with his film Il Divo, a portrait of politician Giulio Andreotti.