Il Divo
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino
- drama
The story
Italy, early '90s. Calm, clever and inscrutable, politician Giulio Andreotti has been synonymous with power for decades. He has survived everything: electoral battles, terrorist massacres, loss of friends, slanderous accusations; but now certain repentant mobsters implicate him in the crimes of Cosa Nostra.
What it’s like
Stylised and restless, with saturated colour and bold, almost comic-book framing: pale marble corridors, velvet-dark rooms lit by cold blue and amber, and a hard glossy digital surface that gives Rome a slightly unreal sheen. Sorrentino cuts to a driving electronic-and-operatic score, then drops into long hushed stretches where the only sound is a cigarette being tapped or a sleeve rustling. The mood is sardonic, grandly melancholic and quietly unnerving, a dark comedy of manners where power feels like a performance kept up for its own sake. The pace is jagged, with sudden bursts of energy giving way to stillness, and the emotional register stays cool and ironic while a lonely, impassive man is slowly exposed. There is violence, including a brief, sharp assassination and several bloody reminders of the mafia's reach, but it arrives in short, unsensational flashes rather than sustained gore. Sex and cruelty are mostly implied. For viewers who enjoy political satire, operatic style and a film that reads like a stylish, unflinching portrait of Italian history.
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