MOTM: "Carlos - The Miniseries" (2010)

There are two versions of Oliver Assayas’s epic, slow-burn, globe-trotting examination of the terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, better known by his nom de guerre, “The Jackal”.

I'm opting for the bigger, badder, meaner cut.

The inspiration for numerous villains in countless spy films and novels, the title character at the center of this 326-minute roadshow version of the French-produced drama (originally aired in 3 parts for the Gallic tube) is at once a producer and product of his times.

While the image of a shirtless hippie is decidedly the poster child of the counter-cultural movement, it has always been a conveniently forgotten fact that the 1960s also produced its fair share of violent left-wing radicals too. Remember the Black Panthers? Or the Red Army Faction? The PLO? In a day when being part of an “underground” movement was a badge of honor and advocating one’s cause “by any means necessary” was seen not only as right but essential, freelance international terrorists were a cultural oddity.

But that’s pretty much exactly what “Carlos” was.

A Venezuelan national who began his career as a guerilla fighter for the Palestinians in the early 1970s, he gained international notoriety as a car bomber, assassin, hostage-taker, hijacker, political mercenary and all-around rogue with ties to the likes of Gaddafi and the KGB.

And like Carlos, the movie is mercurial and enigmatic, not all of it will make sense out of context. What we get is essentially a choppy, clipped method of historical anecdotes and episodes. But the action is violent and swift. Decisive yet impulsive. Like a bi-polar Bourne by way of Tony Camonte.

But this is decidedly not a love letter. 

Below all the Scarface pomp and glitz of Edgar Ramirez’s Cesar-winning performance, beneath all the punk rock and posturing of the great “revolutionary” during his raid at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna or rocket attacks on Israeli airliners—there is a overriding falsity to Carlos that strips bare all rhetoric and romance.  

What is left is the ego of a man who has fallen in love with himself -- a nihilistic portrait of an aging rock star whose quest to shape a new world order betrayed his own vanity.

Check out the trailer here! 

*(Author’s note: “Das Boot” was a miniseries made for German television so this is all technically correct, so there.) 

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 Directed by:
Olivier Assayas

Written by: 
Olivier Assayas
Dan Franck
Daniel Leconte

Produced by:
Frank Lehmann..............................associate producer
Jens Meurer
Sabine Sidawi-Hamdan..................executive producer: Lebanon
 Judy Tossell..................................executive producer
Jona Wirbeleit................................assistant producer
Marc Wächter...............................in-house line producer: Egoli Tossell Film
Daniel Leconte...............................producer 
Raphaël Cohen..............................executive producer
Undine Filter..................................junior producer

Series Cast:
Édgar Ramírez ..............................Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, aka 'Carlos'
Alexander Scheer..........................Johannes Weinrich
Alejandro Arroyo.........................Dr. Valentín Hernández "Acosta"
Fadi Abi Samra............................Michel Moukharbel
Ahmad Kaabour..........................Wadie Haddad
Talal El-Jordi...............................Kamal al-Issawi 'Ali'
Juana Acosta...............................Amie de Carlos
Nora von Waldstätten.................Magdalena Kopp
Christoph Bach...........................Hans-Joachim Klein 'Angie'
Rodney El Haddad......................Anis Naccache 'Khalid'
Julia Hummer..............................Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann 'Nada'
Antoine Balabane........................Général al-Khouly
Rami Farah.................................'Joseph'
Aljoscha Stadelmann..................Wilfred Böse 'Boni'
 Zeid Hamdan.............................'Youssef'
 Fadi Yanni Turk.........................Colonel Haïtham Saïd
 Katharina Schüttler.....................Brigitte Kuhlmann
Badih Abou Chakra....................Cheikh Yamani
Basim Kahar...............................Riyadh el-Azzawi
Cem Sultan Ungan ......................Agent Irakien