At the beginning of Olivier Assayas's film, Illich "Carlos" Ramírez Sánchez (Édgar Ramirez) proclaims himself the resistance to the imperialist forces of capitalism. Communism needs a fighter rather than more rhetoric, he argues. Throughout the film, we see his vain attempts to fight the established western way of life by killing police and snitches, tossing bombs, taking hostages, and playing up his boogeyman status. It's an epic record of two decades, but Assayas makes it unique by chronicling it impartially.
What I've come to expect from a multi-hour crime epic is something along the lines of Goodfellas or Casino - shots that celebrate the criminal's peaks and nadirs, bloody climactic montages, and a rocking soundtrack (although maybe I'm thinking more of Scorsese knockoffs and Vinny Chase's "Medellin"). Three hours goes relatively quickly and it's well-soundtracked, but there's not the now-cliche montages that underline the crime lord's dramatic moments. Assaya's lens is more objective, but he also signals Ramirez Sanchez's vitality through a few recurring images/locations. As he exits the plane in Lebanon, when he's coming up as a key terrorist operative, he looks confident but he's still just another passenger. After taking members of the OPEC meeting hostage, he controls the plane, deciding its course. When he's captured by the Sudanese/French, he's lying bound on the floor of the French plane. The last shot is of a French policeman telling him that on the plane, he's in French territory (where he will ultimately be tried for his crimes).
While the key to Ramirez Sanchez's survival (amongst his cohort) is the fear his name brings to Westerners, Assayas portrays the 1970s-1980s as less suspicious times. Ramirez Sanchez didn't get into an OPEC meeting because he was well-trained, he got in because no one on the tram reported a militant-looking group and the secretary of the building revealed the conference's location. Some of his career-defining targets - the home of a top British businessman and the aforementioned OPEC gathering - are no longer places where we imagine people could slip into easily. Thanks to the law of unintended consequences, his actions actually further insulated the upper echelons of capitalism.
The political maneuvering going on is interesting to watch. From the Venezuelan OPEC representative attempting to broker a ransom (and failing with the Venezuelan communist Ramírez Sánchez to Iraq attempting to disrupt its neighbors to Algeria taking the lead on hostage negotiation to the Soviet backing of Ramirez Sanchez, it's great to see the political context and how this set of terrorists played into it.
This review references the movie version of this, but there's also an extended miniseries version of this, which I'll have to watch some time.
Crew & Cast
Directed by Olivier Assayas (Cold Water, Irma Vep, Something in the Air, Clean)
Written by Olivier Assayas, Dan Franck, and Daniel Leconte
Édgar Rámirez - Ilich "Carlos" Ramírez Sánchez
Alexander Scheer - Johannes Weinrich
Nora von Waldstatten - Magdalena Kopp
Cristoph Bach - Hans-Joachim Klein
Ahmad Kaabour - Wadie Haddad
Hiraku Kawakami - Yatsuka Furuya