Let us discuss Olivier Assayas' epic film/mini-series about a famous Venezuelan with the nom de guerre CARLOS

Bring it in here, guys.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/magazine/26assayas-t.html?ref=global-home

this is nice

was kind of disappointed by j hoberman's piece, which seems to have been written on the basis of the cannes screening. like, it just is not true that carlos is always on screen. there are bits that are quite notable for his absence. and it's not really very much about carlos as media star; if anything it downplays that side. and it isn't just a wham-bam thriller. i can't remember 'che' so well because it was boring, but 'carlos' is just as 'serious' (just not boring).

― l'avventura: pet detective (history mayne), Sunday, September 26, 2010 11:38 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

kind of wish a.o. had printed more interview quotes, less career assessment

also wish some would translate assayas's books

I am confused about the availability of this. I think it's coming to IFC On Demand in October, though I get the impression that's the theatrical version. Meanwhile, I swear I saw an advert on the Sundance Channel saying the mini-series was coming in October.

my impression is that the on-demand version will be the full-length. otherwise why bother? don't know if there is any tv release planned in the UK.

i couldn't watch 5.5hrs in one sitting -- it's a three-part film, end of. and not a trilogy. but we're not in a cultural situation where cinemas show things in that way, because we're not in a cultural situation where people go to the cinema three nights in a row. am i wrong?

The ad on the back of Film Comment says 'In Theaters', and I assume you're right that they won't show all of it. Although I remember at the Glasgow UGC they showed all of Best In Youth, one part a night for several nights plus an omnibus version on the weekend.

I liked Scott's take on Demonlover.

OK, I found out what's going on. IFC is releasing the short version in theatres as well as putting it up On Demand, with the full length version in theatres at select engagements. The Sundance Channel is debuting the full miniseries the same month.

the UK poster says 'full versh in selected cinemas' so

what are the diff running times?

unless I'm mistaken, I think the theatrical is 140 minutes and the mini-series is 330.

the full theatrical is about 2.5 hours, the short version is 5.5

the middle section (which includes the OPEC sequence) is pretty much intact in the short version. i would say that about 3/4 of the third part are simply excised. some of the best stuff in the first version also goes.

the first and second films are plainly more exciting, and maybe in the third part the politics get a little complex (read up on french-syrian relations at the time of the lebanon war pre-show), but you know, find the time.

xpost

No way in hell is any version of Carlos playing here, so I gotta wait for video :/

some of the best stuff in the first version part also goes.

i meant

i watched the theatrical on friday (they sent me both, but the long one was such poor quality and so heavily watermarked the idea of looking at it for 5+ hrs was intolerable)

rapidshare is your friend

i kinda wish i'd seen the long one tho because a lot of it seems 'clipped'

except for, like u say, the opec sequence, which is amazing

ya i was wondering if it was up on the torrents or wtv but for some reason i figured it wouldnt be... damn

'miniseries' will def be released to NY theaters, at least for a few weeks

i was *just about* ok with the theatrical until it cuts to the berlin wall coming down, but it honestly felt like they didn't know what else to do so skipped almost to the end. it fucks everything up and makes the remaining 20min really drag. obviously a 5.5 hour film in three parts is not an easy sell, but that's what it is.

also, we get him seducing nora van waldstatten (sp),* and then her next scene is them divorcing 15 years later. craziness.

ya i was like what, jump ahead 15 years??

there's a scene where she's like "you just killed one of your best friends while our kid was in the next room" and i was like... i guess i missed that incredibly important moment?

it cuts from about 1978 -- carlos signing a deal with the syrians -- to 1989-90.

he sets up in hungary (because the east germans won't have him), and is meant to do all kinds of operations for the russians and romanians and syrians and libyans, but it all goes a bit 'boogie nights'

"you just killed one of your best friends" -- what is a bit curious about this is, well... im pretty sure it isn't in the long version either :/

but obviously the scene loses its heft a little, given that we've barely got to know her (spoiler: she is 'long-suffering')

looking forward to seeing this. i hope i get to see the full one at the movies.

s1ocki there's a good looking full rip on KG.

What jed said.

I haven't seen it though. Need to find the time! Assayas is all over the place, for me.

This starts on the Sundance Channel tonight.

This was quite good (the first part on Sundance)

Glenn Kenny interviews OA:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2410

looking forward to this, although i don't find assayas a very exciting filmmaker.

but as a salsa dancer...

ay ay ay

it was fucking awesome.

the 3rd part wasnt as strong/credible as the the ones before him, but overall - an excellent work.

great (use of) soundtrack too,influenced by Scorsese (one out of many influnces from him):

loveless love - the feelies
dreams never end - new order
all night party - a certain ratio
sock it to me - john o´brien-docker
basta ya
yolanda - pablo milanes
paraguana
el sueno americano - la portuaria
feedback in viena
terebellum - fripp & eno
ahead - wire
Hi'lawe - tia carrere
Saa magni
contentement
forces at work - feelies
sonic reducer - dead boys
dot dash - wire
Zag Ihr Auch - Christian Gerd
drill - wire
the 15th - wire
sharing - satisfaction
pure - lightining seeds
jenra - Davy Graham
Duniya - Tata Dindin
Amir El-hosn - Hamza el-din
Mwashah - Hamza el-din
La pistole y el corazón - los Losbos
Saa Magni - Oumou Sangare

theatrical cut flies by, not least due to the omission of the entire 80s. thought it was great regardless

I'm gonna go see the 5-hour version in the theater, I think...

FREE SMALL POPCORN!

agree w/enrqq's take on the editing above, it just about works if you go in knowing its been cut from the cloth of the 5hr versh and there's going to be continuity issues

have no idea when/if I can fit long version into my next 2 weeks

I seem to remember seeing they were showing the longform vers at the gft but can't find anything about it on the net so maybe I made it up.

Or I'm a maladroit googler.

In London all I've found up to now is that Greenwich Picture house are playing the 5hr version tomorrow.

Riverside are playing the no cut versh on 12th December.

Lumiere don't seem to want to know?

Curzon Cinemas will be welcoming director Olivier Assayas for a Q&A after a very special screening of the full length version of Carlos. At 5 hours 34 mins in length it will be screened in 3 parts, each in its entirety, with an interval. Sunday 24th October 1.00pm, Curzon Mayfair.

^yeah I saw that, and it is tempting, but I've been put off slightly by all the comments saying that yes it's very good, but only 'very good'. Feeling like I can wait for the DVD which better have the 5hr version.

yeah man i hate very good films.

it'd be cool to see the q&a -- i say go. the dvd's out in like a week, i think, but if you have the option to see it on the big screen, why the eff not?

My very demanding degree, possibly! If I can get enough work done today and afterwards...and it better not be sold out..

ha, sorry, being a bit judgemental based on my ridiculous amount of recreation time.

interesting it's not at the lumiere. assayas makes a big thing of dissing the french cultural establishment -- might be related.

the response hasn't been quite ecstatic -- it's not a film you come out of with a spring in your step. coz it's five fuckin' hours long, and there's no heroic ending. it's quite difficult to review too, being so long and full of... stuff. the range of brilliant small roles is one thing it's hard to convey.

and also it kind of goes against what people want to hear. i remember assayas saying that cahiers had been down on 'the lives of others' because it said that maybe life under communism kind of sucked. similarly, 'carlos' isn't really much to do with the 'terrorist-as-superstar' thing, and it even goes so far as to say that not everyone on the radical left has their heart in the right place.

but remember that reviewers *did* get ecstatic about fuckin' 'the white ribbon' and 'un prophete'. this is a much more intelligent, exciting, vital film; but imo assayas is almost the only director in europe worth bothering with. might even see it a fourth time myself tomorrow.

haha you're saying people don't think it's pro-carlos enough?!

dunno about 5 1/2 hours of this in one go

haved watched 5 episodes of sopranos over the course of a day before but not in consecutive sittings

d

haha you're saying people don't think it's pro-carlos enough?!

― george pimpton (s1ocki), Saturday, October 23, 2010 3:25 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

not exactly. but i have seen it described as a tale of 'idealism gone wrong' which isn't quite it. im overstating it a little, based on post-screening convos.

Damn if I had read Nakh's post I would have been there.

Wait till December now (or if BBC4 would screen the thing.) I am a patient fellow.

Its a shame that much was made of the length. Has Assayas made any comments on what appears to be fairly brutal cutting?

I expect this to be the kind of thing I'll really love/get excitedly into as soon as the first shots are screened. The same feeling I got from any new Haneke I see at the cinema (esp Hidden) and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Has Assayas made any comments on what appears to be fairly brutal cutting?

not directly, i don't think, but he talks about it as the full version. he may well have done the cutting himself. but he has said it was a complete nightmare and that the producers were bastards. it's pretty intractable: no-one goes to the cinema for five-and-a-half hours (plus intermissions). certainly not on a school night. yet it isn't a trilogy you could eke out over weeks either.

ok, thx.

5 1/2 hrs isn't doable for most on a school night, agree. Guess I don't see why the few curzon type cinemas in the UK couldn't screen this at weekends and instead are mostly going with what this cut. Lol Lumiere!

I don't see the big deal. Surely plenty of people are used to seeing 5 eps of a US TV show on DVD, with the odd break. Throwing a 5hr Carlos at people is not a leap, and it has been programmed so you have a 5-10 min break after the first 2 eps.

very good, and I don't really grasp the disappointment with the last third, unless declining and losing your terrorist oomph just isn't "sexy."

it's not as tight, thats all.

it's like everyone got a little tired: the director,the cast and the audience (me).

Saw the short version the other day, thought it was really excellent - the OPEC and plane hijack sequence was some kind of high in cinematic tension. I'd like to see the full cut one day, maybe not all in one go though.

"the OPEC and plane hijack sequence was some kind of high in cinematic tension"

otm
masterpieces of movie making.

nothing is as strong as those in the third part.

Also the bit with the cops in the Paris flat - fucking hell, could barely breath in that section.

I liked the third act fine. It was less exciting obv, but I was kind of wrung out by then and quite up for watching this repellent character's anti-climax.

well, nothing as classically constructed. But since the OPEC thing ends in a kind of unspectacular failure, it'd never stand as a film on its own.

xp

very good, and I don't really grasp the disappointment with the last third, unless declining and losing your terrorist oomph just isn't "sexy."

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, November 1, 2010 1:15 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

see also: Che part 2.

they're really not hugely similar projects

more the poor comparison to part 1 by certain circles, complaining it was depressing to watch such an aimless, ignominious fall.

quite a lot happens in part 3 -- it's only in sudan that things slow down a little, i think, and that's just the last 25min -- i just reckon some people naturally flag

strictly for the headstrong!

pic is at least a *bit* of a black comedy so i didn't find his fall depressing. he still thinks he's a big deal right at the end. and sure there are people out there who still want to chase him down. but he isn't the great threat to western imperialism that he thinks.

i just saw the 5.5-hour version and enjoyed it v music. But I have a few problems with it. Def the third act stuff ppl are already saying (I think if the movie ended after Haddad has washed his hands of carlos, it would have been perfect).

But mainly my problem is that Carlos is kind of a flat character who doesn't really grow/mature/emotionally evolve. The world just constantly changes around him and he deals with it. He gets fat, gets new girls, but is always the same old Carlos. Take for example, Jake from Raging Bull, who was given a similar three-decade life story. The pic is really about Jake's evolving emotional core as it unfolds, blossoms, occassionally breaks down. Carlos is just a cool character who is doing stuff—thus, I think this movie is definitely playing out like "TV episodes"

In that vein, my friend pointed out that the movie would have been better if it was about his one german buddy who quit. Since there's so much emotional depth in haveing to a) fight his pacifism to become a soldier in the first place b) have the moral dilemma about anti-semetism that causes him to leave c) the living in fear when people are after him d) the quandry over whether to write a book, etc...

also, re: scorcese comparison, here's illyana douglas talking about how scorsese uses music

Music really helps Marty tell the story. It starts to kick in the juices. And his timing is unbelievable. When he was in the editing room, he would time the beat. He snaps a lot. If he knows the beats of the music, he can anticipate what the cuts are going to be.

these kind of taut, agitated post-punk songs were actually a big juxtaposition to the languid shots of assayas (not to mention anachhronistic since i couldn't help but notic that a lot of them came out like four five years after the things in the movie happened). I think the Dead Boys worked really well, tho, especially because I can see it as something a revolutionary would blast in their car stereo

though this isn't to say i wouldn't like the soundtrack to this movie, because it was all awesome songs!

yeah the new order track was from like eight years later, but he's not using that diegetically or whatever. it's a strange effect no doubt. the feelies track over carlos's entrance just works, don't care when it's from.

But mainly my problem is that Carlos is kind of a flat character who doesn't really grow/mature/emotionally evolve. The world just constantly changes around him and he deals with it.

i think basically 'that's the joke' -- by the third act, what he's saying has no connection to reality. it doesn't so much in the 1970s either, but he gets away with it coz there are plenty of radicals around. but even in the 1990s, after the end of the cold war, he doesn't change. he's oblivious to how much he's been used.

i guess there should be a dirk diggler moment where he breaks with the bosses, but it never happened.

the film doesn't underline the point, but in the final scenes in sudan he's actually a guest of the same guy who allowed al-qaeda a place to stay there, and he's teaching unidentified islamists revolutionary theory. i can kind of see why the new yorker's blogger thinks the film is 'neoconservative', but islamism is bad imo.

ha, diggler's another great example!

I thought there was a strong clinical-comedy element to the last hour, given the attention to C's agony at his testicular pain after all those years as a sexist pussyhound.

the buffet is closed

my problem is that Carlos is kind of a flat character who doesn't really grow/mature/emotionally evolve

No problem w/ that in this context. I wouldn't want to see a film about Angie; Assayas admitted to Glenn Kenny "I made him a little better than he actually is." I felt the filmmakers were trying to preempt criticism of "glorifying" terrorism by making his conscience pangs so blatant.

i mean, also, assayas is v. much about "the little things" and the weird moments in life, so a huge melodrama about the tortured conscience of a terrorist would def not be in character for him. But I can't help but think personally that my fave movies of all time (ie, Raging Bull, Boogie Nights, Deer Hunter) are pan-decade epics that deal with this plane of existence. Maybe i just wanted the movie to be something it's not?

i mean, when words like "five and a half hours" "epic" "must see on the big screen" are being thrown around all over, i guess i sort of expected something in that tradition (add Lawrence Of Arabia to that list too)

well, it's not that. and I'm so glad it's not Boogie Nights.

i wish i agreed with Morbs more because he seems like an awesome dude to kiw @ Film Forum tbh

i don't think you lose much by seeing it on the small screen, small screens being pretty big these days. but this is a tender question for some people, not entirely unreasonably.

'carlos' isn't so much about carlos as 'raging bull' etc are about their protagonists -- but i would say it holds its own, as a political biopic, with 'lawrence'. i think we get to know him just as well, if not better. it's just that he is hard to understand. he gets kicked out of patrice lumumba university in moscow for anti-soviet behaviour, but will act as a hitman for andropov. a walking contradiction [via 'taxi driver'].

'lawrence of arabia' isn't so hot on the small screen. it's magnificent, but maybe leans on that a little heavily coz it's kind of slow. i wish 'carlos' had had a bigger budget, more realistic explosions though. a little more epic-ness.

I dunno, I think the cheap digital explosions in the slapstick airport rocket-launcher scene makes it funnier.

(WGW, my friend who went w/ me to Carlos left after Part 2, so fealty to my taste isnt required)

but i would say it holds its own, as a political biopic

and see, re: this, i felt like the politics went by soooo fast. i don't think assayas wanted to get mired down in the technobabble of political speak and so a lot of the stuff just flew past me. Kind of wished it would have actually gotten a little more into the who/what/why just for history/political idiots & young ppl like me who aren't very well-versed on these conflicts. Felt that since this stuff just skated by that the focus was REALLY on Carlos and (as stated) that wasn't 100% there for me!

Great discussion so far.

[[^i'm not used to seeing that on ILX and have it not be sarcasm]]

Assayas doesn't think this or Che are biopics (GKenny interview again)

also, I think Raging Bull is REALLY not a biopic, more a thematic/performance aria on Elia Kazan.

After watching Che last week, I think I agree -- it's closer to a rumination on a historical moment, with Soderbergh's brand of folk liberalism poking through.

and see, re: this, i felt like the politics went by soooo fast. i don't think assayas wanted to get mired down in the technobabble of political speak and so a lot of the stuff just flew past me. Kind of wished it would have actually gotten a little more into the who/what/why just for history/political idiots & young ppl like me who aren't very well-versed on these conflicts.

yeah it's dense as fuck, no doubt. i had to review it and saw it a few times and have it pretty much down. im not sure what else assayas could have done, and in the end my line is you almost don't have to understand all of it in detail, but you do receive the impression that there's a lot of complexity that carlos isn't willing to face up to.

his spiel is pretty standard 'brotherhood of man' stuff, but even within a small cause, there are a load of factions (he begins in an anti-arafat splinter cell of the PLO), and even within that faction, divisions (he kind of dislikes the guy he shoots in the flat in paris).

i had to google all the stuff about syria and the lebanon, though there the story is relatively conventional -- his wife wants to prove she is a 'real' radical. the japanese red army stuff was practically surreal, 'demonlover'-type stuff.

in that way it's quite a lot similar to 'lawrence', which is also about the failure of of pan-arabism, kinda. and carlos is teaching lawrence's book at the end!

but also different from 'lawrence' because it's quite cynical about these grand schemes.

as richard bro-dy says, not many critics actually 'went there' re the politics: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2010/10/carlos.html

I'm no Cold War geopolitics scholars, but it definitely helped to have grown up in the '70s when hijackings and politically-motivated urban/airport bombings were in the news monthly if not weekly. I don't remember the OPEC attack but I must've been aware of it then.

Almost of Carlos' "work" was tied to US-USSR dynamics, when that flagged then vanished he was toast.

I don't feel a lack of knowledge of the details or ideologies of the various groups impacted on my ability to understand the story and themes at all. In fact I came away with the impression that ideology wasn't nearly as important to Carlos as just fucking shit up.

Reverse Shot Talkies - Olivier Assayas

i just saw the 5.5-hour version and enjoyed it v music.

lol music critic freudian slip

haaaa

it's like how smurfs say "smurf" instead of other wds

Lots of thoughts on this that I'll probably write up for my page. Help me out with some of the music! I stuck around right till the end for the credits, and I see someone posted a full list above. I knew "Dreams Never End," "Ahead," and "Sonic Reducer." After that, there was a punk song played twice that I assume was one of the other Wire songs--which one? And a couple of great guitar-riffy things that I'm guessing were the Feelies and (maybe?) A Certain Ratio, but I can't link them to specific scenes. There was a good jangly pop song with a female vocal, and a couple of slower things that sounded late-'80s. Great, great soundtrack--loved some of the non-pop music too.

Wire - "Dot Dash" x2

I bought Pink Flag maybe two years after it came out, then the next two soon after that. I can't believe I'd never heard "Dot Dash" till two days ago. What a fantastic song.

the 'fall of the berlin wall' montage is done to 'pure' by the lightning seeds

it was a single, never realeased in an album (except at one point as a bonus track for pink flag)
xpost

i copied the movie soundtrack somewhere above

So I was wrong! I get to choose between the long and short versions. The only way I could watch this is on Sunday at 3 pm; otherwise the abridged version shows all week at night.

you really should watch the long version

go long

Watched the "theatrical" version tonight. Morbs and history mayne OTM. Kinda think that Martinez's doughy cheeks and perfect mouth made a strong case for nihilistic self-mythologizing.

As far as the neocon argument Brody made, did anyone catch this bit from the Kenny interview:

ASSAYAS: The fabric of terrorism of the 70s was ideology. Ultimately, it can be said more simply that it was the Cold War. Yes, it used idealism, the conviction of the youth of that time, but then ultimately it was manipulated by the cold warriors. Whereas of course now it seems to be defined by religious extremism. Which involves the idea of martyrdom. So it seems to be following a completely different logic. But ultimately it's fairly similar. I think to me it's just another level of cynicism in the sense of the guys who are manipulating those guys, because they think it's easier and simpler just to let them blow themselves up, which permits them whatever heaven the religion appears to be promising them. But ultimately it's the same thing. They are the foot soldiers of geopolitics, of their time, the same way as the leftists who used to run the terror operations in the 70s were soldiers of the Cold War. And of course the basic similarity is that whatever terrorism is about, it's defined by the fact that it's run by states. There's only state terrorism. There's no terrorism per se. That's the way it was in the 70s and that's the way it is now. It's always one state sending a message to another.

KENNY: Well and that's the interesting thing in the film, it's something that certain American liberals of the more doctrinaire variety might not like, but you are pretty clear that Reagan's hard line did make a difference in the Cold War push back. It was not ineffectual.

ASSAYAS: Of course. Of course. And it is felt in the history of Carlos. Because, among other things, that's when the powers stopped talking.

One thing I didn't get: how was Carlos' group able to enter the Vienna meeting room with all those weapons and not get frisked?

I saw it about 7 weeks ago, so don't expect any answers!

Still haven't watched this :-(

Watched part one just now. Fucking incredible.

One thing I didn't get: how was Carlos' group able to enter the Vienna meeting room with all those weapons and not get frisked?

Probably the same way Carlos & the Germans kept getting rocket launchers into the airport(perhaps the funniest scenes I saw in a 2010 movie) or how the Japanese crew got into the French embassy: security just wasn't that good then.

Recent news: Carlos coming to Criterion in 2011

Golden Globe Winner

so great this film/mini-series. tried to watch che recently but only got about 30 mins in (subtitles were all tiny and squashed, making the whole thing hard to watch), is it worth persevering with?

i don't think so. the first one is better than the second, and it's not that interesting. really talky iirc, and i don't think it goes any deeper than 'carlos', which is obviously more fun but far from unintelligent.

liked Che I, II is OK if you're interested in the period. (Edgar Ramirez is in I, yes?)

This is on the Sundance Channel tonight, looks like in full.

Only seen Che part 1; it was almost completely free of traditional Hollywood dramatic arcs, kind of like a detached documentary account.

Spent super bowl sunday watching this in toto (yes, I do button my shirts all the way to the top) - yeah, barring certain set pieces/moments (the 1982 bombings framed by Wire songs (Dot Dash = awesome)), that last third does flag a bit - all too much info and passport changes jumbled together and flying by past the viewers with little sense of actual consequence/importance, at least if you don't come with your own sense of the history - not me, I was like two at the time. Feels like POISON RIVER in that regard (if you get that reference).

But, like PR, the first two thirds are pretty amazing.

And I want the outfits he wore throughout the seventies.

is this out on DVD?

I don't think so - Sundance Channel On Demand has all three parts up free. Yes, that is awesome.

Speaking of which, did COLD WATER ever get a US dvd release? And why the hell not?

it is generally understood that Criterion will be releasing this, no?

Yeah, Criterion is doing it in a big box with both the short and long versions, probably out this summer.

Streaming on NetFlix in three episodes. Early use of Feelies immediatley made feel it is awesome, but I'm barely 3/4s of hour through.

good tv movie.

like The Social Network?

wow this was amazing!

i thought i was seeing the abridged version but turns out i got the whole hog, which was totally fine. never really felt bored but i got VERY confused eventually. this edgar ramirez fellow speaks a number of languages.

i love the movement of the whole thing--the way the scope widens, gets more and more complicated, as you also begin to realize the extent to which carlos and his revolutionbros are acting in the context of the cold_war

also what whiney was saying about carlos not having much of a character arc is true, but its kind of... well i guess it didnt bother me. its sort of the punchline, isnt it? in particular because of how wasted and useless carlos ends up being

Early use of Feelies immediatley made feel it is awesome, but I'm barely 3/4s of hour through.

I read somewhere that, in the original edit, The Feelies were far more dominant, but the band got antsy about being associated with something that approached terrorism with anything like ambiguity; after alot of discussion between Assayas and the band's rep, they were relegated to a single scene and all the original Feelies' sound cues were replaced by Wire.

also what whiney was saying about carlos not having much of a character arc is true, but its kind of... well i guess it didnt bother me. its sort of the punchline, isnt it? in particular because of how wasted and useless carlos ends up being

― max, Friday, February 25, 2011 4:59 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

been thinking about this recently... he is meant to be a bit of a shell, borne on the currents of cold war and then post-cold war politics, but the point is he *thinks* he's a man of destiny. it does get a bit confusing, but i've watched it like three times now and 'get it' now, i think.

it's party about the continuity between cold war and our modern world too.

yes exactly. something like "he thinks hes changing the world when in fact the world changed *him*", but its not really that either, since the world doesnt "change" him--it just sort of uses him and discards him

this reminds me a lot of goodfellas, too, not just because of the (terrific) music cues but because los is a very henry hill kinda guy

only w/out the longing for pasta

this is on netflix streaming now and i'm through the first two episodes and i'm not sure if i like it. individual scenes (particularly the opec thing and the part where nada tries to kill 4 cops on the road) are amazing but as a whole it feels kinda superficial and flat to me. it is good it's this long but it still tries to cram too many events into the time it has without enough context/background? for once i find myself agreeing with whiney. but maybe i need some time to think about it.

You're making a mistake watching it in a piecemeal fashion imo.

i watched the first episode last night and the second one this morning

eh i dont know that watching it in a row adds the context shes missing. but i didnt really miss the context/background so

I saw the abridged version in the theatre, so I didn't get The Full Experience either, but watching the thing as a continuous sequence really does give that sense max and whiney described of an ever-expanding narrative (while Carlos himself shrinks).

i think there is arguably something weirdly flat about the whole movie but id have to think about it. honestly even seeing it once i feel like i cant talk about it, its so long i think id need to see it a couple times to really get a handle on it

and yeah al thats true, seeing the whole thing probably gives it more of a sense of direction and aim

i can't imagine the abridged version, i'd probably be much more frustrated. i think "weirdly flat" is accurate. like i *know* the context well enough but i dunno, something's missing!

I'll find out soon enough how well the abridged version salvaged enough of the original material, but every critic I remember reading praised Assayas' work on the AV.

i.e. it's not some The Leopard style butchering job.

i wonder if it feels that way [flat] because theres not much of a story--the opec bit kind of acts as a dramatic high point but theres not much in the way of rising/falling action and as has been pointed out theres not much of an "arc" for carlos, at least not in the sense we usually talk about

yeah i think that's a big part of the problem. it's a series of crazy events kind of chained together with him seducing different ladies in between. a lot of the time it should have been exciting but felt more, eh so what

ya but what ladies am i rite

know what movie i like better than this? baader-meinhof complex!

bourne ultimatum too

also when he speaks english it reminds me of the way the actors talk in raspberry reich and i want to laugh :-/

i don't like the short version at all, entirely removes a major character, etc

just don't see the point

i wonder if it feels that way (flat) because theres not much of a story--the opec bit kind of acts as a dramatic high point but theres not much in the way of rising/falling action and as has been pointed out theres not much of an "arc" for carlos, at least not in the sense we usually talk about

― max, Sunday, February 27, 2011 7:21 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yep

huge diminuendo

not flat exactly but not boogie nights either. it's *not* like goodfellas in that it doesn't have an exciting bit near the end, nor characters who remain with him throughout. there's no family, just a succession of organizations (palestinian, german-palestinian-iraqi, russian, syrian-east german) and women. and eventually these run out.

oh god i hated the baader-meinhof complex, flat-footed, plodding, truly... german film

it's a series of crazy events kind of chained together

nah there is a thread, i mean, he still believes he's on the side of the_revolution in the early 1980s. it makes sense TO HIM. he tells the journalist in yemen that the two superpowers are the same and he's still a freedom fighter. it's bullshit and inconsistent but that's not how he sees it.

yeah there is a thread it just feels like.........a limp thread to me

i love german films btw

i can sorta see what you guys are talking about when you talk about this being flat but idk i think there is a sort of arc but its frustrated/uncertain. like this is p dumm but when i was watching i kept thinking about carlos in terms of the classic hero's journey & how the distance btw his perception of himself & as an independent agent & as nrq says the film's conception of him being simply "borne on the currents of cold war and then post-cold war politics" work to comment on that kind of (self-) mythologizing.

for about two-thirds of the film the lack of linearity doesn't really matter because the thing is moving pretty fast (for a french film). and the vienna hijack takes up loads of film time and that's hardly limp. but it is sort of surreal, everything that happens. oh god the worst omission from the short version is the japanese red army bit. the film is meant to be a bit wtf, that bit especially.

oh yeah i liked that part & what lamp said about the distance btw his perception of himself etc. i don't hate it i just don't feel it's everything it could be.

The true star of this film is: CIGARETTES
Loyal co-star: ALCOHOL

Best Supporting Actor: FAKE PASSPORTS

this 'flatness' is what's good about it. EXCITING Hollywood narratives have conditioned you against realizing that most political phenomena, radical or not, just limp along and peter out after cresting.

(kinda like Ob***)

yeah in case its not clear i sort of liked the flatness! and i agree that it works in service of the larger points & themes of the movie in the sense youre talking about

also, since Ramirez is so bloody hot, the contrasting buff/flabby shower scenes worked well as a metaphor.

Agreed re: flatness. My trouble with these sorts of biopics is the shoehorning of (attempts at) big, exciting moments into (the attempt at) the character/life arc. This film goes the other way, and is infinitely more interesting for it.

The first (and only) Americans in the film (other than Marlboro and Jim Beam) are the two black CIA agents around hour four.

I like how everybody is smoking at all times, in the shower ... getting taken hostage, negotiating with terrorists.

The first (and only) Americans in the film (other than Marlboro and Jim Beam) are the two black CIA agents around hour four.

― David Allah Coal (sexyDancer), Wednesday, March 2, 2011 5:33 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

nice! hadn't noticed that. they're kind of the structuring absence i guess. pretty much every other nationality features. well, a lot of nationalities.

they're kind of the structuring absence i guess.

sorry meant to put in 'makes wanking gesture' tags

watched the full version and thought it was great. portions of it are comparable to 'the baader-meinhof complex' i guess (with the way some RAF characters appeared around the margins i felt like if the camera darted off one block to the left you'd end up in that film instead) but it's less shallow and doesn't quite revel in the violence as much.

loved the backroom political machinations and how carlos was used and eventually used up by seemingly virtually every disreputable government of his particular era. and this film is funny, too, as mentioned. incompetent sociopaths for hire fucking shit up and fucking up.

favorite bit: carlos at the OPEC takeover trying to bro down with the venezuelan delegate, who absolutely regards him as a joker but carlos is too caught up in his monologue of self-justification to notice.

and yeah, what was up with this?

"you just killed one of your best friends" -- what is a bit curious about this is, well... im pretty sure it isn't in the long version either :/

― l'avventura: pet detective (history mayne), Sunday, September 26, 2010 8:22 AM (6 months ago)

i thought i'd dozed off but nope, didn't miss anything.

pretty important distinction between BMC and this film is that generally speaking you can actually buy into carlos and everyone else being single-minded lunatics and utterly detached from the destruction they cause whereas in the former film i felt it was more about these fun-loving party kids who just happened to occasionally blow up stuff, no big deal really. also i think the BMC director is a little bit down w/their philosophy (and probably doesn't call them out on their hypocritical nature enough and they're practically bobby sands-level martyrs by the end) whereas assayas clearly shows carlos as being a complete hypocrite and who is closer to a troll w/bombs than an actual figure of any political relevance or having any coherent POV or, for that matter, being "skilled" as a terrorist.

i think carlos kind of shows some the germans as fun-loving party kids who happened to blow stuff up! bose and kuhlmann in particular. i think the difference is that assayas doesnt see that as, like, sympathetic--just as sad and pathetic.

yeah i guess that's what i meant but i think assayas kind of examines a little more of their actual psychosis and their anti-semitism, BMC kind of ignores it iirc.

i thought BMC was just a plodder, film-wise, kinda uninteresting, but kinda 'informative'. didn't seem to have a point or a subtext, just told the story. christopher hitchens thinks it's highly critical of the RAF. i didn't think that at all, but i didn't think it was particularly sympathetic. they *were* bobby sands-level martyrs if you like. (but i think BMC missed out the RAF's funding by the stasi?)

i think carlos shows them as way out of their depth -- in his first scene carlos says they're out of their depth ('petty-bourgeois students') whereas he's the real deal: of course everyone's out of their depth, the question is by how much. but those guys were booksellers, not as mindless as baader.

yeah when jolly fat bose is like "were gonna hijack a plane" i was all http://i25.tinypic.com/ejgdmt.jpg

BMC held my interest reasonably but it just seemed to be more of a greatest hits compilation so to speak. informative to a certain degree, certainly not shying away from some of the more vicious acts of terror committed by RAF, but not really saying much about those who committed them. i would agree w/hitchens only to the extent that i came away from BMC despising the RAF but i *think* the filmmaker wanted us to believe that their actions (while misguided and criminal) were perhaps a little courageous, they just lost the way when their successors amped up the brutality. assayas seems to regard the entirety of terrorism as not just criminal (obv) but utterly useless and counterproductive as a response measure. i came away w/the sense of carlos and co. as people who were engaged w/politics only as it suited them and many of them were engaged w/it as a reason to thrill-kill, which i think BMC touched on slightly as well but only in the briefest of passings and not in a specifically critical manner. maybe. i dunno. i may need to watch this all again.

probably the grimmest scene, one showing the depths RAF/Carlos would sink too (stuff BMC didn't touch on) was the assassination of the french embassy official and his wife in beirut.

in the middle of this right -- loving it, but also feeling pretty out of my depth historically. anyone have a recommendation on a book that covers this period/topic? Not necessarily about Carlos, but just the terrorism world of the 1970s?

September

siked but hell, colin maccabe? that fuckin vance?

well colin maccabe was a maoist intellectual once upon a time, so maybe he can shed some personal light on people believing in stupid ideologies.

between maccabe and greil marcus those liner notes should win the turner prize for pompousness

or pomposity, even

Dollars to doughnuts MacCabe namechecks Godard in the first paragraph and at least five times further in the essay.

well duh

about an hour into this so far, pretty amazing! reading the commentary is super interesting. i'm really enjoying its insistence that the viewer be familiar with all these events of 70s radical history. like 'lod airport' uhh i'll have to google that. and the language, loving that too.

and yes, amazing how bad security was at all these places! looking back from post_9/11, seems so crazy that the world really did existentially threaten itself in so many ways but surveillance and prevention was so bad. like it hadn't yet occurred to anyone to do what governments have done over the past 10 years (even as other insane shit was happening all the time, out of sight). there's something to this "lost innocence" idea, you know...

done! this ruled.

it's amazing how bad he was at his job. i'm trying to think over the course of the movie, were any of his operations successful, by their own stated goals? even the revenge-killing of the muslim brotherhood guy (if i have that right) -- you see him murder an old woman in the doorway, but the chase to kill the actual target is not shown. presumably they did, but assayas is content to show the failures and fuckups at that point.

i was totally in love with the somewhat hapless but ultimately firm-minded hungarian security guys

all the language was super great too.

i loved this too. i happened to be watching it during the week of the Egypt/Libya events and wow it was interesting. i wish i had a more profound point to make but i think what sticks with me the general cold-war vibe and people like Carlos being pawns in the power plays of larger interests. he sees himself as a weapon for a cause but he's used for interests he can't even see.

yup, too egotistical to really see what he's up to, even when the superpower system collapses and he's sucking around in really ugly backwaters, no moment of self-reflection. if there's one little bit of nostalgia i'll allow myself, it's a glimpse into a time when arab politics had a substantially leftist element to them. a strange thing to think about, these days.

assayas did make khartoum look kind of lovely tho.

i had some trouble keeping track of all the knockout black-haired women, for a while. but i did my best.

i happened to be watching it during the week of the Egypt/Libya events and wow it was interesting.

yeah it's weird how much this film is a tour of everywhere where he news was this year -- tunisia too.

and yeah, xpost, he was pretty useless, from the very first hit on the british guy.

haha his handler gave him an old makarov with 5 rounds, what do you expect??

and yeah all this shuttling around between bigmen who are either long gone or just recently gone... or hanging on. so strange.

(spoilers) i didn't quite get one element of the OPEC hit -- he was there to kill the oil ministers of saudi arabia and iran, as a favor to (then-new) saddam, who wants oil prices to skyrocket, so he can afford to crush the kurds. is that right? i also thought i heard carlos' superior say it was to prep for saddam's invasion of iran? is that right? what i don't know is what relationship iraq had to pre-revolutionary iran. i guess i could look it up.

he was there to kill the oil ministers of saudi arabia and iran, as a favor to (then-new) saddam, who wants oil prices to skyrocket, so he can afford to crush the kurds. is that right?

basically yes. they're refusing to put the price up any higher. i did not hear anything about an invasion of iran though.

ok, misheard then.

that immediately struck me as a stupid plan, even if it did work. so what if you kill the countries' representatives, that doesn't change those nations interests at all! it's not the just the "soldiers" that were totally un-self-reflective, everyone in the game seemed to have a really outsized idea of what terrorism could accomplish. one of the subexts, i think, is that through the 80s this idea started to shift, demonstrated by the hungarians and even the stasi; terrorism is pointless and creepy at best.

im told that the stasi/east german regime regarded the russians as backsliders, that they represented the vanguard. so they would not have been interested in adventurers like carlos. i think the hungarians just wanted a quiet life.

that's a good point about the vienna mission. not sure how it was supposed to end.

i had some trouble keeping track of all the knockout black-haired women, for a while.

this was so noticeable it had to be deliberate....unless Assayas has a particular thing for gorgeous dark-haired women, which makes him normal.

^^lol The real Carlos, Maggie & their daughter:

http://i816.photobucket.com/albums/zz85/cittadinoamericano/My%20Photos/carlos_ilich_9b_kopp.jpg

also liked the black comedy of all these contending leftist groups and states trying to figure out how to knock off sadat, and then someone totally unrelated does it. yoink!

imo that's the key thing about the film: the comrades have a belief in historical inevitability, carlos never loses it. he's completely oblivious to the chaotic truth. he's miffed about missing the sadat hit but doesn't really reflect on things.

most on_the_nose moment: his weedy german bro sez: "the war is over. we lost." carlos just... 'converts' to 'islam'

the trajectory of all those freaky germans is pretty wild; i don't know that stuff all that well. prison and death for a lot of them, and then, joschka fischer...

there was a long TNR article about fischer and his old revolutionbros a year or two ago

A shame that Lady Thatcher and the late Reagan can't watch this film and realize the pathetic state of international leftist terrorism in the seventies.

lol i think they knew

besides, they were still 'effective' at killing people

Ronnie and Maggie?

:P

Netflix sent its four-disc edition today.

I'm tempted to go as OPEC mission Carlos for halloween. All I'm missing is the beret and the shoes.

great movie!

good thread!

Almost tempted to flip this. In part due to the excitement here, we started this, but haven't felt compelled to move beyond part one. Well made, well acted, but felt a bit "and then this happened, and then this happened..." boilerplate to me.

it gets somewhat looser

it sustains itself very well. looks absolutely genius next to Mesrine. anyway, I got the blu-ray for christmas so I'm excited to see it in one sitting and in good quality.

Finally got hold of the 3-DVD set and watched it over Xmas. Its fantastic. Not only does he tell, but he SHOWS -- especially in that last hour where he becomes a ghost of the 'radical' left's past.

And (maybe bcz I watched it at roughtly the same time) it sorta works well w/Marker's Grin Without a Cat, as a history of the left in all its my shades of black.

Carlos was given another life sentence a few weeks ago - here is a report

the ideal rainy Sunday afternoon movie

Otm

that is a long, hard rain

just watched the first ep(?) last night, really good, pumped to watch the rest tonight/tomorrow

wish I had time for a full viewing

i think about this movie a lot!
does assayas have a new one coming out?

Tomorrow it'll be two years since I saw it in the theater.

does assayas have a new one coming out?

His new one (Après mai / Something in the Air) just came out a month or so ago in France - I'm not sure where else it has been picked up for distribution...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeuku4vzPkg

It's played festivals in the US, and I think it has distribution for 2013. Annoying when Americans people put in their EOY lists for 2012.

après mai is pretty good... it didn't really land with me so much... but it's the kind of movie i could see revisiting and really digging

Ideal for long hot long weekends.

Don't read if you haven't seen this.

At the end, when Carlos gets extradited back to France on the plane, is the French official who takes him back the same one who survived the shooting 15 years earlier?

Anyone know this well enough to tell me where in the film "Dot Dash" is played? (What's happening or, even better, how far into it time-wise, approximately.) There's no clip online, and the Tunefind listing for Carlos is empty.

Isn't it during one of the plane sequences?

Watched the shorter version last year. Maybe one day will get around to the longer version.

Alfred: meaning a hijack scene? I'm trying to dodge watching the whole film again for a two-minute sequence. (Not that it's not great, but I just watched it again two months ago.)

I will keep an ear open, clemenza, but don't hold your breath.

Thanks.

Very first tune playing when he arrives in Beirut is "Loveless Love" by The Feelies, but you probably already knew that.

I didn't. All I remember are "Dot Dash," "Dreams Never End, "Sonic Reducer," and "Ahead"--all brilliant.

Alfred: meaning a hijack scene?

I think so? I saw it a couple years ago again but my memory's hazy too.

"Dot Dash" shows up in part 3, 21 minutes in. Funny, rewatching this has been on my mind lately, good way to spend a day in quarantine

Thanks! You just saved me from killing yet another movie by watching it too many times too soon.

What is the optimal rewatching interval?

Like to watch a movie a second or even third time right ways to see what I missed the first time, but after that dunno

It's the "after that" I have a problem with. Have killed many of my '70s favourites by this point--the two Godfathers, Taxi Driver, Nashville, others.

Yeah I hate burning out on stuff like that, I've been wary of doing it with Carlos - I think I've watched it twice all the way through, I've been waiting until its felt like long enough that I can really get excited about seeing it again. Now feels like as good a time as ever.

This post upthread has a list of tunes (but not the relates scenes) from the soundtrack: Let us discuss Olivier Assayas' epic film/mini-series about a famous Venezuelan with the nom de guerre CARLOS

Ended up watching the whole thing yet again. I went in thinking that "Dot Dash" was the musical highlight, but I don't think so--not that or "Ahead" or "Dreams Never End," great as they are. It's "Sonic Reducer" during the capture of Nada.

Part 3 is great in the way that Carlos and Johannes have been reduced to such marginal, anachronistic ghosts, even though it takes them a while to realize the world has passed them by.

Forgot about “Sonic Reducer” being in there.