At first glance, the former critical (Cahiers du Cinéma) turned-filmmaker Olivier Assayas does not seem the classic character which is immersed in a political controversy that film. But that can happen with your telefilm "Carlos".
The production, originally intended for television and with a duration of 330 minutes, is about to be presented yet in the Cannes festival (on Wednesday 19 and immediately begin to be released in chapters on French television) . Before the critics start to say anything good or bad it is someone who has already begun to question it: the main character in real life, the political terrorist and mercenary murderer Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, alias "Carlos the Jackal."
From his cell in a French prison serving a life sentence that the Jackal has denied to the press some of the hypotheses proposed about him in the work of Assayas, which is embodied by the actor Edgar Ramirez (same surname, but apparently no relation). For example, "Carlos" says the famous hostage by OPEC in Vienna in 1975 was commissioned by the Libyan leader Kadhafi Muhammad and not, as stated in the film by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
RESPONSIBILITIES. "It's easy to chalk it up to Saddam Hussein because he is not in this world to meet," grumbles "the Jackal", who also argues that, contrary to assertions by Assayas and writer Dan Franck also met in 1978 with the then head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, who had been ordered to assassinate Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. "Carlos" admits he is not entirely certain that the Soviets did not participate at all in the assassination of Sadat (whose agreements with Israel involving undoubtedly a political setback for the USSR in the Middle East), but declares rather skeptical regard. In his view, the "usual suspects" should be rather Qaddafi or Saddam, but prefers to avoid categorical statements about it. Officially, Sadat was assassinated by gunmen from the group extremist Muslim Brotherhood, but there is ample room for speculation about who were the masterminds of the crime.
Indeed, almost everything you say Ramirez should be subjected to an exercise of "hermeneutics of suspicion." Throughout his years in prison and their abundant manifestations to the press, "the Jackal" has exhibited frequently recurring profile pathological liar, and at one time used even attributed actions committed by other extremists to inflate his legend. International terrorism analysts are often wary enough of it, and there are some who has described as "an incompetent relations skills public ".
Ramírez Sánchez was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 2, 1949, he joined the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine, and after several failed operations, achieved notoriety with his foray into the official seat of the Organization Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna in 1975, which killed three people. For several years he was among the most wanted internationally, and the press linked him with the creation of novelist Frederick Forsyth The Day of the Jackal, published in 1973 and filmed by Fred Zinneman. One version holds that the nickname was born when he Forsyth's book found among his belongings, but the fact is that the press and it had been awarded before he was arrested.
As the fictional character (presumably inspired by a true professional murderer) Ramirez was attributed all sorts of attacks and unsolved political crimes committed in the seventies.
Objection. Ramirez, who is serving a sentence in Paris for the murder of two French intelligence agents and an informant, and soon will face another trial for attacks produced in 1982 and 1983 requesting Assayas's film to question its content, but the Justice declined claim calling it "contrary to freedom of expression."
The director Assayas explained that originally, the producers asked for a telefilm focusing on the episode of the arrest of Ramirez in Sudan (where he fell into a trap in which Saudi and American authorities collaborated), with an emphasis on French foreign policy towards Africa. The filmmaker admits that this angle was not interested, but the character itself seemed appealing Jackal and his counterproposal was a story most extensive, covering a longer period in the history of the protagonist, and would enable it to interact with many other characters preferably embodied by actors who have the same nationality (Palestinians by Palestinians, Iraqis by Iraqis).
There was also a topic that intrigued Assayas: the process that turned a fighter alleged "causes Third World" into a murderer mercenary. The director regrets having to remove the script some "poetic license" (not proven but plausible facts of life and personality of Ramirez, who in his opinion would have made more understandable), but apparently wanted to avoid any legal claims. Or a bomb in the car, if Carlos has yet (as you probably have) some friends loose.
Threepersonal history of filmmaker
Irma Vep 1996
Assayas's background as a critic have a lot to do with this film about a film director who embarks on an "impossible" is the we see. Clean
2004
the trap of drugs and the efforts of a woman by "cleansing" (hence the title) and get custody of the son he lost because of his addiction. Solid drama.
Summer Hours
2003
An isolated mansion, three generations of a family who gather there, the time spent. Refined, elegant and very French.
The best films on television today is
When the librettist Dan Franck became a partner to shoot Charles, the director Assayas and he began discussing the possibilities of construction of the story, and launched a huge research and documentation. They quickly realized they had material for a film in three parts, perhaps in four, although at the time the producers got stronger: three yes, four no.
Assayas insists that only a great director of Hollywood had achieved the freedom that gave television. In France, says, Carlos is unthinkable as film project. His colleagues have objected that "is not movies but TV," and some were opposed to the exhibition in Cannes. Assayas's answer: "Indeed, it is not square and conventional film you do. It's a film that you forbid me to do, and that is infinitely more cinematic than three quarters of garbage you produce."
When fame extends the true story of a character
Jackal legend is larger than its history. His last years were spent hiding in freedom and living a low-profile existence in Hungary and perhaps Romania. To make a living out from time to time, of hiding to carry out attacks on the service of those who pay. The former Communist Party member of the PLO, and former student of Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, had been left far behind. He had also left behind the belief in its participation in spectacular acts such as Air France plane hijacked and taken to Uganda in 1976 making the United States Embassy in Teheran, carried out by Islamic militants in 1979, or until assassination of Somoza in Paraguay.
English Journal El Pais
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