Week of November 5, 2009, Issue #733
FILM
DVD Detective: Z & Il Divo
The art of political art: Cinema occasionally manages to make politics riveting to watch
David Berry / david@vueweekly.com
It may just be that anger at injustice has a way of dulling the senses, but rarely are works of art with an overt political themes actually all that entertaining or engaging. There is a reason our parliamentarians give speeches and write books, after all, and at least part of that has to do with the fact that making a cogent political argument and a story that holds interest are two things that do not lend themselves to the other.
In an interview included on the Criterion release of his landmark political thriller Z, Greek ex-pat Costa-Gravas explains how important it is to put audience engagement at the forefront of any film, although how sincere he's being is mitigated somewhat by the fact the film opens with a disclaimer pointing out that any relation between real people and the characters in the film is entirely intentional. Based on the assassination of a popular Greek politician by the military junta who would eventually take over, the proximity to source is arguably one of the few drawbacks of Z: Costa-Gravas' position is understandable, but it's still a relentlessly simple dynamic, corrupt government officials and the thugs they hire to carry out the assassination of a prominent democratic politician little more than heartless toads, the supporters of the politician morally perfect idealists.
But for its searing and somewhat simplistic politics, it's also a damn entertaining film. Propelled by a kineticism that was as rare for its day—though which proved, for better and worse, highly influential—it's political treatise that smoothly incorporates car chases, interrogations, attempted murders and back-room dealings, all of which blister by in a way that belies its two-hour run time.
Z is essentially a film in two parts. We open with a military official lecturing his colleagues on the dangers of a growing ideological mildew in the country, then begin following the efforts of a peace-loving group of political operatives attempting to track down a hall for one of their rallies. If the collusion of proprietors that seem to have been threatened by the police to keep them out isn't enough, they soon learn of a plot to assassinate the speaker they're organizing the rally around, a rising political star who has the credentials and charisma to pose a serious threat to the established order.
When a group of protestors organized by the police finally make good on the threat, we shift our focus to the magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's tasked with finding out what went on. Though the police are eager to write the whole thing off as an unfortunate accident, constant digging slowly leads him further and further into the forces at play here. This back half is certainly Z's strength, Trintignant part crusader and part modern Sherlock Holmes, deftly picking through the constant stream of official lies heading his way: in particular, his scenes of interrogation and questioning, where his darkened glasses hide eyes that never fail to register a detail, are some of the best of the example ever filmed.
Maybe Costa-Gravas' best trick, though, is the ending. Without giving too much away, it manages to be both cathartic and incredibly frustrating, the director tipping his hand towards that pleasing the audience he's talking about without letting them escape into some dream world where everything turns out alright.
Political corruption is also at the centre of Il Divo, out now from Mongrel, although if the sympathies of writer/director Paolo Sorrentino can be said to lie anywhere, it's certainly with the corrupt one, lifetime politician and three-time Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (Toni Servillo). Following Andreotti from the start of his last term as PM until the allegations of mafia involvement and subsequent trial that brought him down, he comes across as an incorrigible, witty, charming imp, a politician usually one step ahead of his detractors and the kind of man who responds to death threats with a withering remark.
Il Divo would likely be a bit more poignant with some knowledge of the last 50 years of Italian politics—Sorrentino isn't so much excusing Andreotti as explaining why he managed to avoid corruption charges for so long, and some of the past that haunts the man is as relevant to us as the FLQ crisis would be to an Italian—but for a film that's mostly concerned with back-room dealings and political maneuvering, it's still quite riveting. A lot of the credit has to go to Servillo, who is dryly perfect in the role: slightly hunched and with ears bent like a malevolent elf, he is the perfect embodiment of the kind of man you can't quite help but admire and hate at the same time—walking proof that the devil gets by on his charm. V
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