Carlos

A long film covering twenty years of an international militant. Ilich Ramírez Sánchez comes to Europe as a young Venezuelan and starts working within the Palestinian cause. In time he becomes known as Carlos and, through the 1970s, the most recognised militant in Europe. The event at the centre is the OPEC raid in Vienna in 1975: a group storms a ministers' meeting, boards a plane with hostages and travels from country to country. That is the longest and most tense section. What follows is decline. Organisations change, countries stop hosting him, and the man becomes a kind of refugee. He is seized in Sudan and taken to France. The narrative does not vindicate him. The film shows ideology becoming identity past a certain point, and the man trying to carry his own image. It runs five and a half hours; it was in fact made as a three-part television series, and a shortened cinema version exists. Edgar Ramírez plays Carlos; the film moves through German, French, English, Arabic and Spanish. Olivier Assayas directed. A comprehensive production for anyone who likes political cinema and long narratives based on real events. For a viewer who wants something short, it is very long and dense with detail.