IL DIVO (Italy/France, 2008.) (Cont.)
Wednesday, 14th October 2009

(Cont.)
If Il Divo is a brilliant, highly cinematic comment on Italian society, it is no less a riveting portrait of a man who set out to be inscrutable. Sorrentino has said that in creating his portrait of Andreotti he was influenced by known comments about him. He has quoted two women in this context, first Oriana Fallaci who felt Andreotti to be a frightening figure beneath his courtesy and wit, a man always on the defensive and to be remembered physically for his delicate hands and long white fingers like candles. His second quote was from Margaret Thatcher: “He seemed to have a positive aversion to principle, even a conviction that a man of principle was bound to be a figure of fun”. On screen the presence that Toni Servillo brings to the role conveys everything about a man whose manner suggests that the only safe course in politics is to confide your thoughts to nobody - indeed he comes across as somebody who would hide his intentions even from himself. Andreotti as shown here is an enigma, but one that is wholly fascinating and only one crack in his facade is allowed. It provides the film’s most powerful moment: it’s a confession in a scene that has been described as a dream sequence and it’s quite possible that the use of the dream format was adopted as a means of putting comments into the mouth of a person still alive who might otherwise argue that this was slanderous. Certainly the man is a mystery and it is typical that, when we see him using biblical quotations to get himself off the hook, it is difficult to decide if Andreotti is a totally sincere Catholic or somebody who relishes being able to use scripture for his own ends. In Servillo’s performance and in Sorrentino’s film everything is there, both as regards the man and the country. The effect is extraordinary.
Programme Note by Mansel Stimpson.