Before addressing the subject of Il Divo, the labyrinthine film about Italian political animal Giulio Andreotti, first a little about his political biography. Andreotti is one of the key members of the Christian Democrat (DC) party which dominated postwar Italian politics for over fifty years, until its spectacular collapse in the mid-1990s. During that time, he held practically every prominent position in government, most notably holding the office of Prime Minister no less than seven times, and oversaw Italy's transformation from a backward peasant country little changed from the days of Garibaldi into one of the world's leading economies.
His career has been dogged by controversy upon controversy: links to the Cosa Nostra, alleged membership in the sinister P2 Masonic Lodge, and involvement in the tangentopoli corruption scandal that eventually brought down the DC party. Most notoriously, he was Prime Minster during the so-called Anni di Piombo (Years of the Bullet), a period which saw escalating terrorist bloodshed, culminating in hard line left-wing group the Red Brigades' (BR) kidnap and eventual murder of former Prime Minister and close cohort Aldo Moro. It is widely regarded that Andreotti's decision not to negotiate with the BR was what led to Moro's death, but more significantly it is suggested that his uncompromising policies were intended to provoke more extremist factions into violence in order to isolate them politically.
It is necessary to have this knowledge before seeing Il Divo, since this is no narratively straightforward biopic in the vein of, say, Milk (2008). In fact, its complex construction and bewilderingly large cast of secondary characters make for a somewhat overwhelming first viewing. The film opens with his re-election as Prime Minister in 1992 and ends with the opening of his corruption trial, but through a combination of flashbacks, reconstructions, confessions, and interviews we see glimpses of the preceding years: suicides, assassinations, and in particular Andreotti's unshakable guilt for letting his colleague Moro die so horribly. In one of the few scenes where he lets slip genuine emotion, he questions why it was not he instead who was the one kidnapped and murdered.
If the film is an unconventional portrait in that it is non-linear in structure, then it also must be stressed that it is by no means an entirely realistic character study. Though the script is based largely in fact, from the very beginning it is clear that actor Toni Servillo is portraying him as an oddity. The opening shot is a slow zoom revealing his head to be covered in acupuncture needles, rendering him closer to Pinhead from Hellraiser (1987) than anything human, whilst much has been made of his strange folded ears which made me think of Gizmo from Gremlins (1984). He is full of strange mannerisms: curious hunched posture, an ever-present dispassionate facial expression, and his odd gliding shuffle of a walk, with various speeds including an absurd reverse gear which really needs to be seen to be comprehended. Stalking the corridors of his home in insomnia, there is a clear resemblance to Max Schreck's titular Nosferatu (1922), if crossed with Quasimodo.
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