Il Divo Giulio

[bore]

NB: Not really sure where to put this, which is a sort of review of the film Il Divo, but its certainly not off topic for a politics forum, and this board has always seem underused.

For Al

Most of the English language reviews of Il Divo compare the film stylistically and not just thematically to both Goodfellas and The Godfather. Its not difficult to see why, in the opening scenes alone we have a montage of gangland executions set to pop music and are introduced to a crew with sardonic freeze frame titles, but also glacial scenes filled with pregnant pauses where our elderly, impeccably dressed protagonist Giulio Andreotti, the pre eminent politician of the first republic, who held countless ministerial roles over a 50 year career including defence and foreign secretary as well as being prime minister on 7 separate occasions, is surrounded by bodyguards and treated by everyone with a seriousness and almost fawning respect that belies his physique.

That both comparisons can be made seems on first impression rather odd, given the two films are famously very different and might suggest an incoherence were it not an intentional effect to emphasise the duality at the very centre of the film, the yawning chasm that exists between every facet of Andreotti and every facet of his entourage, the rose and the manure. His allies are straight out of Goodfellas, their every action accompanied by ephemeral, bouncing music, their words and deeds energetic, tawdry, gauche, Andreotti himself is Don Corleone, he moves to timeless, sweeping classical pieces like Faure’s Pavane, in scenes composed of slow dignified shots. This does not mean the film is an apologia for Andreotti, on the contrary, sophisticated or not, a mob boss is a mob boss, but despite itself it is not completely without sympathy for the protagonist it professes to hate. De Gasperi said that Andreotti was capable at anything and may in time become capable of anything, Sorrentino may intellectually believe this, but he believes all of it, and you get the sense that a suppressed part of him thinks that the italy of today would be better if it too was run by someone who was, whatever else you may say about them, capable at anything.

In fact this ambiguity haunts the entire work, which makes it an even more remarkable accomplishment, a biopic that not only leaves you knowing less than you did at the start, but feeling satisfied at this turn of events. This is only possible because, unlike most works in the genre, it does not tell a straightforward story, instead taking impressionistic approach to the final ministry, abortive presidential campaign and the growing stench of corruption that exploded nationally with tangentopoli and personally with a trial for mafia connections that is ostensibly the subject matter, certainly it would not be understood by anyone who was not aware of, for instance, Toto Riina and Paolo Borsellino. And this leaves room to focus on the main theme of the film, the character of Andreotti himself.

That this can even be attempted is unusual, most politicians, though they may live interesting lives, are not themselves interesting, their motivations and ideology, whether selfish or selfless, are prosaic. But Andreotti is genuinely fascinating, a real enigma. He tolerated rampant corruption and infidelity in his faction and yet he was always faithful to his own wife and never tried to abuse his own position for the benefit of himself or his family, he retained a lifelong genuinely fervent catholicism but could accommodate innumerable political positions and even associate with the mafia to further this goal,  over the course of decades he commanded real loyalty among a few and inspired fear in many despite having little to no charisma and showing almost no affection to others.

Andreotti provided his own explanation for this last paradox, attributing it to his sense of humour and the knowledge he possesses on almost every other figure in public life, characteristics that are both a matter of public record and on display in the film, much of the script just consists of copy and pasting his best zingers, and  there is a remarkable scene where Eugenio Scalfari, the editor of La Reppublica in a monologue of almost unbearable intensity all but accuses him of sanctioning multiple murders to be met only by a comment on how his newspaper had only maintained its independence thanks to him. These depend so much on the strength of Toni Servillo’s masterful performance-  it has to be layered, it can not be brash or explicit because we know Andreotti never was, but it still has to impart the menace and gravity that he exuded.
 
The unanswerable question hanging above this, which Sorrentino has to grapple with, is if this explanation of Andreotti’s is a convenient excuse, whether and to what extent there was muscle behind the archive. And in facing this the film rightly recognises whereof we cannot speak - Sorrentino does not show, he does not seem to know the answer. There is a close to libellous depiction of a kiss between Andreotti and Riina, but while this might show what the director feels in his heart, in the context of the film it is couched in a sort of haze of unreality, the non linear narrative, the unreliable narrator, the heavily stylised shots mean you can not say for certain what is what happened and what is what it would have been like had it happened.

But what we can say for certain - the mafia links of some sort, the corruption of his inner circle, the modesty of his own life, the fervent catholicism, that is, that compromise of some sort had to be made -  all of which is depicted in the film, raises a question more fundamental than the exact extent of his involvement. More than what precisely he did, what Sorrentino really wants to know is why he did it. The closest we get to an answer is in a remarkable scene where he imagines explaining all to his wife, saying that, as he and God know, one must commit evil to guarantee the good, that revealing the truth is the end of the world. This is, of course, heretical, albeit the most human heresy in its seductiveness, to see its appeal you only have to consider Berlusconi and Salvini and Melloni. But crucially it is also Sorrentino’s answer and not Andreotti’s. Casting himself as the grand inquisitor, who accepts damnation for the sake of his flock, is an audacious move but the evidence for it, though certainly plausible, can only be circumstantial, because the only man who can say for certain remains silent.