Carlos

Many recent films have addressed historical terrorism, few better than Carlos (2010). Five-and-a-half hours uncut, Olivier Assayas's miniseries addresses radical activities with brutal clarity, bolstered by Edgar Ramirez's incredible performance.

Carlos chronicles the career of arch-terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal (Edgar Ramirez). Collaborating with Palestinian nationalists and Marxist groups like the Japanese Red Army and West Germany's "Revolutionary Cells" Carlos subjects Europe to a reign of terror, culminating in the kidnapping of OPEC ministers at a Paris conference in 1975. As Carlos' notoriety grows he finds it harder to keep working: Arab leaders shun him, the Soviets view him as a loose cannon, and his subordinates resent his arrogance. By the early '90s Carlos is reduced from feared kingpin to hunted fugitive.

Carlos echoes dispassionate works like The Baader-Meinhof Complex in its rich depiction of terrorism. Assayas shows Carlos' world as a strange nexus of Arab nationalism, Third World ideologues and leftist radicals (with KGB backing), all conflated into the "anti-imperialist" struggle. It's shocking post-9/11 how easily Carlos' gangs operate across borders, as well as authorities' willingness to accommodate their demands. For all their sound and fury, the terrorists never achieve their objectives. Carlos spends two years plotting the death of Egypt's Anwar Sadat, only for homegrown jihadists to beat him to the punch. 

Unlike Steven Soderberg's similar Che, Carlos makes no effort to romanticize its subject. Carlos is a charismatic idealist, but a showboating thug whose recklessness catches up with him. Even his most successful operation, the OPEC kidnapping, goes awry when he murders a Libyan delegate, infuriating Gaddafi's government and complicating their escape. Enraptured by success, lionized by the media and courted by the Arab Street and KGB, his leftist posturing belies his mercenary status. In private he's a didactic bore and a chauvinist womanizer, belittling his wife (Nora Von Waldstatten) as a bourgeois poseur.

The first two episodes bristle with thrilling set pieces: kidnappings, bombings, assassinations. Assayas' staging mix excitement with docudrama detail, especially the second installment's unbearable tension. Inevitably, part three takes a sour tone as Carlos' operation unravels. Authorities kill or capture his collaborators, the terrorists reduced to pathetic retaliation. With the Cold War ending, Russia and other Eastern Bloc nations view Carlos as a liability. Eventually he's reduced to teaching in rural Sudan, an easy mark for the CIA and French intelligence.

Edgar Ramirez impresses with a well-rounded performance. Impressively multilingual, possessing considerable charm and sex appeal, Ramirez can't help but be appealing. Yet he digs beneath the appealing surface, revealing the grandstanding, violent narcissist underneath, brooking no challenges to his authority while treating others like pawns. It's a fascinating portrait of a multi-layered monster, Ramirez playing all angles to the perfect pitch. It's no slight on the flawless ensemble cast to note that Ramirez utterly dominates Carlos.

Above all else, Carlos is commendably credible. It's easy for films like this to romanticize their subject, or else caricature them as inhuman monsters. By letting Carlos' words and deeds speak for themselves, Assayas shows him as less freedom fighter than self-aggrandizing criminal.