The film “Carlos,” by French director Olivier Assayas (Boarding Gate, Irma Vep, Demonlover), will keep viewers on the edge of their seats. Written for the small screen of French television, this breakneck geopolitical thriller about the life of Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (aka “Carlos the Jackal”) is a cinematic masterpiece.
Born in 1949 to a Marxist lawyer, Ramírez Sánchez trained in guerrilla warfare with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hoping to bring these skills to his native Venezuela. Instead, he joined the PFLP and allegedly participated in numerous violent campaigns, including the 1975 kidnapping of several oil ministers at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) headquarters in Vienna.
Ramírez Sánchez still lives and is serving a life sentence in a French prison. Lauded by some as a revolutionary, he has been called a terrorist, a soldier, a womanizer, a mercenary and, at times, a pathological liar. He chose the nom de guerre “Carlos,” purportedly after former Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez. In the film, Ramírez Sánchez names Rodríguez as a hero for nationalizing his country’s oil industry. Ramírez Sánchez also claims that, if released from prison, he would join Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution.
The movie begins in the 70’s, a time steeped in idealism, as radical liberation movements erupt around the globe. Shot in nine countries, the film is a whirlwind journey that leads us through a web of international espionage and political intrigue. As the idealism of various social movements deteriorates throughout the 70’s, Ramírez Sánchez’s own principles have to adapt to these changes. In an Art in America interview, Assayas describes how Ramírez Sánchez needs to “re-invent himself and be constantly on the move: physically and intellectually. (…) He’s dependent on the little space that he has—a space that is constantly shrinking.”
Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramírez gives a mesmerizing incarnation of the man known as “Carlos”. He becomes a stunning kaleidoscope of the many myths that surround the real Ramírez Sánchez. Although the journalistic documentation of this story is meticulously researched, “Carlos” the person is far more difficult to capture. Thus, Assayas admits that much of the film is fiction, especially Ramírez Sánchez’s personality and relationships. “I don’t think anyone will ever know who the real Carlos is,” says Edgar Ramírez to the New York Daily News. “He’s a walking contradiction; that’s why this character is so interesting.”
Edgar Ramírez’s romanticized image of Ramírez Sánchez has been duplicated before in other venues, such as in Colin Smith’s 1976 book Carlos: Portrait of a Terrorist and Christian Duguay’s 1997 film The Assignment.
Ramírez Sánchez decries many of the myths that have been written about him, explaining how he hates the moniker “Carlos the Jackal” in a prison interview with Anthony Haden-Guest for the New York Press, particularly because “El Chacal de Guiria” was the nickname given to Pedro Estrada, a torturer for Venezuelan’s National Security in the 50’s.
Ramírez Sánchez also blasts the politics of the film. In a prison blog, he faults his fellow Venezuelan Edgar Ramírez for participating in “counter-revolutionary propaganda.” The actor Edgar Ramírez says in a New York Daily News interview, “I don’t express myself ideologically through my characters. I think the character in this movie, and the story itself, has enough complexity for everyone to take their own message out of it.”
Perhaps. But Assayas does omit any clear representation of what drives oppressed people such as the Palestinians to drastic guerrilla tactics. And Assayas labels Ramírez Sánchez as a terrorist in the film’s opening credits.
As a matter of fact, Ramírez Sánchez is suing the producers of Carlos, claiming that the film links him with crimes for which he hasn’t been convicted. The film’s lawyer, Richard Malka, balks at this in the Telegraph of London saying, “How could we tarnish the image of Carlos, when he himself has claimed to be behind at least 2000 deaths?”
Yet the viewers of Carlos might not care about any of this. They will probably be too intrigued with revisiting this amazing segment of history. So much of this story actually did take place. And to see it on the screen is a jarring reminder that what goes on in the world is often bigger and more horrendous than any fiction. Airplanes have been hijacked, bombs have been tossed into crowds of civilians and weapons continue to be bought and sold on a massive scale.
Much of the film, including “Carlos’” inner psyche, have been invented. But through Edgar Ramírez’s performance, the movie helps us delve deeply into why anyone would be drawn to a life of such violence and risk.
Carlos will play Nov. 5–to 11 at the SFFS screen at the Sundance Kabuki Theatre. An intermission will divide its five-and-a-half hour length. Undoubtedly, the audience will eagerly return for the second half. For more information visit: www.sffs.org.