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The Jackal's Eaten Enough For Today

By TK | Posted Under Trailers | Comments (7)

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Here’s the trailer for Carlos. Directed by Olivier Assayas, it’s a biopic about notorious terrorist and assassin Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, who waged a campaign of terror via bombings, shootings and other acts of violence on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). His most notorious crime was the raid against the Viennese OPEC headquarters. He’s currently serving life in prison in France for the murder of two counter-intelligence agents.

Less stylized-looking than the other recent criminal biopic, Mesrine (see Prisco’s review of Part 1 here and Part 2 here), Carlos supposedly takes an in-depth and honest look at Sánchez and his activities. I’m always a little leery of biopics about truly horrible criminals, and all politics aside, there’s no denying that Sánchez killed and injured a shocking number of people, many of them innocent noncombatants.

Carlos has been getting rave reviews since it premiered at Cannes this year. It was originally released as a TV miniseries abroad on the French cable station Canal+, and is coming to the US via IFC Films. The full 5 and 1/2 hour series will be released on the Sundance Channel and in selected theaters, and an abridged version will be on IFC On-Demand.

Take a look:









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Comments

The fact that this is an Assayas film outweighs the biopic danger. Assayas!! I'm so not worried.

Posted by: Ranylt at September 29, 2010 9:20 AM

anyone else see the baader meinhof complex and just feel disgusted afterword? there are a lot of interesting people in the history of the world, why are there so many 'biopics' that focus on the asshole murderers? zero desire to see this.

Posted by: Ashton Koosher at September 29, 2010 9:37 AM

For the header pic alone I thought it was about Che Guevara...unless that's supposed to be one of the Jackal's many disguises...which is like trying to hide you're attempting to assassinate the Prime Minister of Israel by dressing up as Josef Stalin.


Posted by: bleujayone at September 29, 2010 9:45 AM

Yeah, no matter how bad the light in which the terrorist might be portrayed, doesn't the mere existence of the film make him a hero in too many eyes? It inevitably will attempt to humanize him, i.e. generate sympathy for him and his cause.

When does the Khalid Sheik Mohammad biopic come out?

Posted by: , at September 29, 2010 10:37 AM

I saw The Baader Meinhof Complex and did not feel disgusted afterwards. I felt the film made no attempt to glamorise them. It coldly showed the circumstances in which the Red Army Faction came into existence, the way in which the motivations of the leaders changed and how the group finally went off the rails.

I don't like many of the people involved in this part of history, but that does not preclude me from wanting to learn about it.

Posted by: Simon at September 29, 2010 5:39 PM

Heaven forbid we humanize humans...

Posted by: Rest In Peace at September 29, 2010 6:17 PM

Actually after living thorough the time shown, and reading quite a bit on terrorism. This is about as BS as you can get when it comes to his life. He really was/is pretty much a meh. Most if not all the killing was done by others. Although he always took credit for everything done, even for things it was shown he was never involved in. After he was caught Sanchez always denied killing when asked. Later when history passed him by he began to believe much of his own hype, which is what lead to him being caught. Revisionist history to make him some kind a freedom fighter? or celebrity no thanks.

Posted by: clancys_daddy at September 30, 2010 8:13 PM