Il Divo

Watched the new film by Italian director Paolo Sorrentino the other day. Il Divo follows one of Italy's most infamous politicians, former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, in a kind of fictional retelling of a period of his life. My feelings about the film are much the same type of feelings I have when watching a David Lynch film. It doesn't feature dwarfs talking in reverse, but had similar aspects that reminded me of how it felt to watch the grey quiffed genius's work.

It has the brooding, teetering on the edge of madness atmosphere, the odd, socially awkward, slightly grotesque characters, and most importantly, a plot where I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but loved it all the same. Il Divo has none of the deliberately abstract content of Lynchs films, and I'm sure if I went and researched the messy world of Italian politics I could probably understand what was happening, but it didn't bother me too much, I understood the main subtexts it was trying to convey; Italian politics were severely corrupt, were based around constantly changing social allegiances, everyone is only out for number one, and that Giulio Andreotti is a mysterious, strange, charismatic schemer of Machiavellian proportions.

Tony Servillo, the lead actor is worth the admission price alone, his odd, mannered performance has been likened to a Nosferatu type figure, in a political horror show.