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May 22, 2013
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 ‘Carlos’: A Different Kind of TerrorismPosted on Oct 17, 2010
“Carlos,” the fictionalized yet persuasively believable biography of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, celebrity terrorist of the 1970s and ’80s, comes to us in two sizes: There’s the full-ride version, made for television with a running time of more than five hours, and there is a three-hour film that will doubtless have somewhat more theatrical play. As it happens, I volunteered for the longer presentation, and I’m not sorry I did. My guess is that it is somehow truer to the terrorist’s life—huge amounts of boredom relieved, from time to time, by intense activity (bombings, shootings, hostage-taking)—than the lite version might be. Carlos is portrayed, in a very good performance by Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez, as a man given at least as much to indolence, boozing, sexual adventuring and chain smoking as he is to the wide variety of revolutionary causes he embraces over the course of his 20-year career. He is also, and this may be the most crucial aspect of his character, a man basking in his own celebrity—the heady fact that his “Carlos” pseudonym strikes unreasoning fear in the hearts of the general public, though not so much in the minds of state security operatives, particularly those behind the Iron Curtain and in the Arab world. They are mostly too busy trying to strike deals with him for the use of his talents and those of his fellow conspirators. The movie reminds us that the high point of Carlos’ career occurred in December 1975, when he invaded a meeting of OPEC’s oil ministers in Vienna, threatening to kill the Saudi representative, then flying everybody hither and tither in Africa, seeking someplace that would ransom the officials. That finally occurs, and this long and suspenseful sequence, masterfully orchestrated by director Olivier Assayas, is in a couple of senses the heart of the film. In itself it is creepily electrifying cinema. But it is also the moment, I think, in which Carlos begins to perceive there is good money to be made in the terror game. It takes him a while—essentially the last third of the movie—to fully embrace this cynicism, but after much packing and running (and failed deals for his services) he ends up lolling about in Khartoum, a fully burnt-out case, ripe for the plucking by the French secret police. Since 1997 he has been serving a life sentence for the murder of two police agents. Movies like “Carlos,” in which we can’t help but identify with the trials of essentially murderous thugs, always present a problem. We become invested in, even sympathetic to, their adventures, both muscular and domestic. It is hard to remember much of the time that Carlos and his gang represent values that are entirely antithetical to our own, that much of the collateral damage they inflict is on peaceable, non-ideological bystanders and that even their sworn enemies are generally just people doing their bureaucratic jobs. Assayas, however, keeps a cool, objective distance from the terrorists. They have no charm and no humanizing waywardness, but neither are they fully monstrous. They are fairly dull people doing their jobs in ever-threatening circumstances. Nor does his film offer anything like a revolutionary rationale for their activities. Carlos occasionally alludes to the worldwide revolutionary struggle, but that’s not much more than rhetorical window dressing. At heart, the guy is just a psychopath, kind of like the mastermind criminals we don’t see much in the movies anymore. But with this difference: He’s operating in a world where the media mindlessly magnify his prowess, which for a time at least also magnifies the profitability of his activities. You emerge from Assayas’ film thankful for his essential French rationalism, his refusal to buy into easy explanations for the behavior he so patiently records. One is often struck by the affectlessness of Carlos and his followers. They are quite literally pitiless, but they never bring that state of mind to the fore. They just go about their business in a businesslike way, and if they get testy with one another it is almost always about personal issues—especially, late in the film, when Carlos, a married man and a father, sunders his marriage by his ceaseless (and rather dispassionate) womanizing. I can’t leave this film without recording my admiration for the effort it demanded: years of research; a 300-page script; a six-month shooting schedule, much of it in places where the events depicted actually took place; the sheer epic scale of the work, which (perhaps the OPEC kidnapping aside) mostly takes place quietly, in quotidian settings, with small groups of people speaking softly of horrendous activities. What the director wants to tell us, I think, is something we don’t particularly want to hear—that terrorism, though a rare impulse, and one that is carried out by fringe personalities, is yet a normal—that is to say, quite a banal—human activity. That is likely the scariest thing about it—the source of its occasional power, but also the source of the impotence that “Carlos” conveys. None of his crimes affect the course of our public life. At the end of his day, Carlos was in part brought down by a minor testicular ailment, which he delayed curing because—vanity, vanity—he was also contemplating liposuction to address the fact that in his idleness he was now running to fat. The enemy even of perverse heroism is always encroaching middle age. Carlos was 45 when they nabbed him. Advertisement Previous item: Taking ‘Superman’ to School Next item: Big Thumbs Up for Scheer’s ‘Stickup’ New and Improved CommentsIf you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy. |
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By Napolean DoneHisPart, October 22, 2010 at 7:45 pm Link to this comment
I wonder how many Carlos’ are out there right now?
Report thisBy mack894, October 22, 2010 at 5:39 pm Link to this comment
Carlos started out an intellectual revolutionary but he always
harbored sociopathic traits that ultimately overcame him. Brilliant
and fluent in several languages, the fast talking Carlos is played as
a hired businessman out to negotiate the best deal for the
revolution. His ego makes him a problem for middle eastern
countries that see an opportunity to be legitimately recognized by
the U.S. so invariably he’s booted out but usually after he’s done
dirty work for them.
The movie opens as it ends, with Carlos and his penis. It really is a
Report thisfantastic film considering all the detail that went into portraying
the times of social and political revolution in the 70s. Sundance
ran all 5 hours and I think IFC is handling the theatrical 3-hour
version.
By moonraven, October 19, 2010 at 4:51 pm Link to this comment
UreKismet,
Your comments about the series don’t surprise me.
After all, some capitalists put up the money for it.
Unfortunately, films about the revolutionaries from the 60s and 70s usually are tedious and full of tics. I voted with my feet from the first half of the Che picture. Benicio del Toro’s constant coughs and wheezes to establish the character just did not cut it.
On another note, it’s best to ignore the nihilist narcissistic nitwits that post their personal attacks and hatespeech here because they don’t know squat about any of the topics.
Report thisBy Lafayette, October 19, 2010 at 12:34 am Link to this comment
Celebrity Terrorist? Who is kidding who?
I lived in Paris when “Carlos” was on a rampage here. His victims are just as dead as those killed by any non-celebrity terrorist (11 dead and more than 150 wounded, five who will never walk again).
Yet another movie that need not have been made.
Carlos is rotting away in a French prison outside Paris. Many Parisians think they should throw away the key and just forget the SOB.
Report thisBy ardee, October 18, 2010 at 1:01 pm Link to this comment
rico, suave, October 17 at 8:04 pm
So, you rail against a “nihilist narcissistic murderer” but condone, or at least remain silent about state sanctioned murder?
UreKismet, October 17 at 7:53 pm
Thank you for a fine post!
Report thisBy Napolean DoneHisPart, October 18, 2010 at 10:28 am Link to this comment
Some folks simply won’t accept defeat… whether in war, on their block or in their own hearts.
Report thisBy WriterOnTheStorm, October 18, 2010 at 9:58 am Link to this comment
Finally we know why there are no teapartyers in Starbucks. They hate us for our
Report thiscoffeehouses.
By tomack, October 18, 2010 at 5:58 am Link to this comment
I do not think UreKismet’s comments were in any way close to “60’s coffee-house bullshit”. Much of what he says about our world’s power elite is true. Whether or not that fact is put in context with one man, such as Carlos, is irrelevant. Truth is truth.
And violence is violence, whether perpetrated by one terrorist or wholely sanctioned by one government. At least terrorists kill fewer people.
That is not to say I condone the violence nor the “rationale” behind it—from either individual or governmental terrorism.
Report thisBy Napolean DoneHisPart, October 17, 2010 at 9:25 pm Link to this comment
UreKismet, you see clearly. May He Bless You Greatly.
Report thisBy rico, suave, October 17, 2010 at 4:04 pm Link to this comment
UriKismet:
What a load of 60s coffeehouse bullshit! “Carlos’ work” my ass. You treat it like it was art. He was a nihilist narcissistic murderer. No more, no less.
Report thisBy UreKismet, October 17, 2010 at 3:53 pm Link to this comment
I watched 2 of the 3 episodes a few months back and found that the seies was little more than pro capitalist propaganda that was too busy insinuating Carlos was solely motivated by self interest (aggrandisement, power etc) to truly explore the reasons for his decision to embrace violence to resist imperialism.
Power corrupts and no doubt the media BS that was being pumped out about Carlos from relatively early in his career did effect him, but one shouldn’t lose sight of the fact he was fighting a just cause and was motivated more by idealism than celebrity culture or a dependence on the material trappings of capitalism.
Once a revolutionary has made the decision to use some of the violence committed every day by governments and corporations against those humans unlucky enough to be born close to something capitalism desires, against those societies which support imperialist violence, that revolutionary accepts that anyone living within that imperialist society potentially could be hurt by the violence.
This isn’t an end justifies the means thing it is a reluctant decision which has to be made if humans are ever going to escape our headlong dive into extinction.
Criticising Carlos because ‘innocents’ or what the writer deems to be innocents, may be caught up in a revolutionary action is a typical capitalist attempt to divert humans away from the real issues Carlos’ work raised.
In fact if amerika had listened to the messages that were the subtext of Carlos and others when they undertook their actions back in the 1970’s - there would have been no 911.
Justice for the people of Palestine is a primary issue because it encapsulates nearly every outrage which corporate capitalism has visited upon people who live outside mainstream bourgois western society.
The land theft, resource (eg water theft) expropriation, massacre of civilians who were in the way (DEIR YASSIN ), attempts by western governments to blame the victim, use of a proxy(Israel) to eastablish a bridgehead to enable further imperialist expansion, corruption of political processes, lies, deceptions, false flag attacks, war crimes (Sabra & Shatilla), sowing of divison within communities, racism (Arab guilty of rape after consensual sex with Jew), all these things are present in various imperial adventures from the isolation and infection of the Hawaiian Royal Family to the exile of the Chagossians from Diego Garcia.
Report thisIn the end many activists find no alternative to violent resistance. If Schikel truly cared about innocents he would turn his dislike of violence on the perpetrators (western Imperialists) rather than those who seek to defeat them such as Carlos and all who came after.
By PatrickHenry, October 17, 2010 at 3:37 pm Link to this comment
‘Sharon’: A different kind of terrorist.
Naw, just like Carlos and the rest.
Report thisBy rico, suave, October 17, 2010 at 3:20 pm Link to this comment
The guy in the photo looks like Belushi
Report thisBy gerard, October 17, 2010 at 2:42 pm Link to this comment
Three significant and ominous sentences:
Report this1. “They just go about their business in a businesslike way ...”
2. ...” mostly takes place quietly, in quotidian settings, with small groups of people speaking softly of horrendous activities.”
And 3. “None of his crimes affect the course of our public life.”
Just like the corporate robbery taking place behind closed doors in Washington, New York and other coercive “financial centers” of the world, The only difference comes up in Number 3, where such privateering activities do effect “the course of our public life,” and that, to its total detriment.