Carlos (TV miniseries)
Encyclopedia
Carlos is a 3-part French
television drama mini-series, first broadcast on Canal+
in 2010. Produced by Film En Stock's Daniel Leconte in coproduction with Jens Meuer in association with Canal +, Studio Canal, ARTE, the Sundance Channel, it was created by Daniel Leconte and written by Dan Franck and Olivier Assayas
, also directed by Assayas. It stars Édgar Ramírez
as Carlos the Jackal
, the infamous terrorist and murderer. After several bungled bombings, he achieves notoriety for a 1975 raid on OPEC
headquarters in Vienna
, resulting in the deaths of three people. For many years he was among the most wanted international fugitives.
The 5½ hour version of Carlos was screened out of Competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival
on May 19, 2010. The series aired on Canal+ in prime-time in late May 2010. IFC Films
acquired all US rights to both the mini-series and the theatrical version. The former premiered on the Sundance Channel on October 11, 2010 shown over three nights, while both versions received a theatrical release with only the shorter version available on video on demand
. Carlos won the 2010 Golden Globe award for the 'Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television'.
editor Stephen Smith compiled the film's research, some of which came from the files of intelligence agencies that became available after the fall of the Berlin Wall
when files from former Soviet Bloc countries surfaced. Some of the film's dialogue came from tape recordings made by the Stasi
, the secret police of the former East Germany. Made with a budget of $18 million, Carlos was Assayas' first foray into television. Originally, he was not interested in the project because it seemed "too crazy and too complicated". He was drawn to the project because it allowed him to make a film dealing with recent history and real people. He said, "not long ago, the idea of making a film about Carlos would have scared French producers, but nowadays I sense that we're being encouraged to make films that have a contemporary dimension". Actor Edgar Ramirez said, "What we're trying to do is demystify him. This guy who supposedly had everything figured out was not as keen as he was said to be. The public and historical image was as history's big manipulator but in many moments of his life, he was being manipulated".
Initially, Assayas was worried about finding the right actor to play Carlos because they need, "the shoulders and the charisma to carry this kind of movie on his back". Fortunately, he cast Ramirez who, like the real Carlos, is a Venezuelan and his family came from the same small Western Andean state. The actor described Carlos as, "a bit of a monster, a bit of a dreamer, a bit of an idealist, a bit of an assassin, a mixture of everything, full of contradictions, and that's what made him interesting to me". The production was shot in seven months across three continents in countries such as Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Lebanon, and Morocco. The film was shot mostly in English with passages in French, Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Arabic, German, Russian, Dutch and Japanese. As filming continued, Ramirez put on 35 pounds in order to resemble Carlos's overweight physical condition at the time of his capture. The final two hours of the film were shot in sequence.
The 5½ hour version of Carlos was screened out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival
on May 19, 2010. The series aired on Canal Plus in prime-time in late May 2010. In November 2009, IFC Films
acquired all US rights to both the mini-series and the theatrical version. The former premiered on the Sundance Channel on October 11, 2010 and was shown over three nights, while both versions received a theatrical release with only the shorter version available on video on demand
.
on the soundtrack but shortly before post-production was completed he was informed that members of the band did not want their music associated with terrorism. The director remembers, "We ended up managing to keep one song for a scene that did not involve any kind of terroristic activity. But I had to completely reinvent the whole score". He ended up using several songs by Wire
.
The soundtrack includes:
conference in Vienna and how his methods were depicted: "Showing hysterical men waving submachine guns and threatening people is completely ridiculous," he insisted. "Things didn't happen like that. These were professionals, commandos of a very high standard". His lawyer tried to block the film's release, arguing that Carlos had a right to see it beforehand, but the judge dismissed the complaint on the grounds that it violated Assayas' freedom of expression. His lawyer plans to bring two more lawsuits, one that argues the film breaches pre-trial judicial secrecy laws and a second that demands Carlos be paid royalties for his life's role in providing material for the scriptwriters.
gives the film a score of 93% based on reviews from 59 critics, with an average score of 8.1/10. Metacritic
gave the film a weighted score of 94/100, based on 30 critics, which it ranks as "universal acclaim". indieWIRE's Todd McCarthy found the film to be "a dynamic, convincing and revelatory account of a notorious revolutionary terrorist’s career that rivets the attention during every one of its 321 minutes" and praised Assayas' "ever-propulsive style that creates an extraordinary you-are-there sense of verisimilitude, while Edgar Ramirez inhabits the title role with arrogant charisma of Brando in his prime. It's an astonishing film". In his review for the Los Angeles Times
, Steven Zeitchik wrote, "How good is Olivier Assayas' Carlos? Think of The Bourne Identity
with more substance, or Munich
with more of a pulse, and you begin to have a sense of what the French filmmaker accomplished with this globetrotting and epic look at one man's rise to the station of international guerrilla leader and terrorist celebrity". In his review for USA Today
, Anthony Breznican wrote, "The closest cousin to Carlos, cinematically speaking, might be There Will Be Blood
- another epic view inside a mind of twisted humanity". In his review for Time Out London, Geoff Andrew wrote, "Certainly, the film doesn't feel anything like television. It's shot in Scope, boasts the fleet way with narrative, camera movement and cutting that are characteristic of Assayas at his best and has a sense of scale, depth and seriousness of purpose that is esssentially cinematic", but felt that "the third and final part runs out of steam a little". Sight and Sound magazine's Nick James called the film, "a breathtaking political epic", and felt that there were, "brilliant scenes aplenty". In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman
wrote, "Carlos is gripping stuff, despite its incongruously fashionable rock soundtrack and a grossly over-played final section. The extended account of the OPEC caper includes the festival's best hour of filmmaking this side of Godard
's Film Socialisme and would make a terrific movie in its own right".
However, Entertainment Weekly
magazine's Owen Gleiberman
wrote, "But as electrifying as some of it is, I wish that Assayas had made Carlos at once shorter and richer. I wish it were more than an episodic series of galvanizingly staged plots and executions and mishaps". In his review for the Boston Globe, Wesley Morris felt that the film was, "hardly dumb. But it peaks early and never returns to the sharper ideas and sharper filmmaking of the second of its three sections". Time
magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "And Carlos, while matching the Coppola
and Lean
films in length and breadth, misses out on depth ... No masterpiece, Assayas' movie is a fast-paced, knowing trip through two decades of violence on two continents". In her review for The New York Times
, Manohla Dargis
wrote, "Played by Mr. Ramirez with jolts of charisma and, smartly, little of the usual movie-star charm – if not much depth or nuance – Carlos is a difficult character on which to hang such an ambitious, inherently cumbersome tale".
wrote, " In retrospect, it's a bit of a blur, and you might opt to see Assayas' condensed version (alternating in some theaters), which clocks in at a trim two and a half hours. I say go for the whole shebang. Shot by shot, scene by scene, it’s a fluid and enthralling piece of work. I wasn’t bored for a millisecond". In her review for the Los Angeles Times
, Betsy Sharkey wrote, "In the end the collaboration between Ramirez and Assayas creates a fiercely astute portrait of a terrorist that neither romanticizes nor demonizes him, but rather dismantles the myth to take some measure of the man underneath. It also brings a searing insight into the early days of the guerrilla-warfare-writ-large style of attack that would evolve into the sort of terrorism we fear most today". However, in his review for the Washington Post, Hank Stuever wrote, "The result is a beautiful film that requires a hardy and determined viewer. I assume that anyone who will recognize and follow each and every event and the historical players portrayed in Carlos must have worked in foreign diplomacy back when the rest of us were busy watching the Fonz".
s annual critics' poll, while both the film and Assayas placed second for best picture and best director in separate polls conducted by IndieWire
and the Village Voice. Ramirez also won for best lead performance in the same IndieWire poll while placing second in the Village Voice for best lead actor.
Carlos was later nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, one for Best Miniseries or TV Movie and Ramirez for Best Actor in a Miniseries. It won the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film. However, because it was released on French television before theatrical distribution, it was ineligible for the Academy Awards
.
At the French César Awards 2011
, Édgar Ramírez was awarded, for the film version of the TV series, the César Award for Most Promising Actor
.
Edgar Ramirez was also nominated for the 63rd primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor In A Miniserie Or Television film, for the interpret of Carlos.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
television drama mini-series, first broadcast on Canal+
Canal+
Canal+ is a French premium pay television channel launched in 1984. It is 80% owned by the Canal+ Group, which in turn is owned by Vivendi SA. The channel broadcasts several kinds of programming, mostly encrypted...
in 2010. Produced by Film En Stock's Daniel Leconte in coproduction with Jens Meuer in association with Canal +, Studio Canal, ARTE, the Sundance Channel, it was created by Daniel Leconte and written by Dan Franck and Olivier Assayas
Olivier Assayas
Olivier Assayas is a French film director and screenwriter.He made his debut in 1986, after directing some short films and writing for the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.-Career:...
, also directed by Assayas. It stars Édgar Ramírez
Edgar Ramirez
Édgar Filiberto Ramírez Arellano is a Venezuelan actor. He played Carlos in the 2010 French-German biopic series Carlos, a role for which he won the César Award for Most Promising Actor at the César Awards 2011. He also played "Paz", a CIA assassin in the movie The Bourne Ultimatum.Ramírez...
as Carlos the Jackal
Carlos the Jackal
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez , better known as Carlos the Jackal, is a Venezuelan pro-Palestinian currently serving a life sentence in France for shooting to death two French secret agents and a Lebanese informer in 1975....
, the infamous terrorist and murderer. After several bungled bombings, he achieves notoriety for a 1975 raid on OPEC
OPEC
OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...
headquarters in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, resulting in the deaths of three people. For many years he was among the most wanted international fugitives.
The 5½ hour version of Carlos was screened out of Competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival
2010 Cannes Film Festival
The 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 12 to May 23, 2010, in Cannes, France. The Cannes Film Festival, hailed as being one of the most recognized and prestigious film festivals worldwide, was founded in 1946. It consists of having films screened in and out of competition during the...
on May 19, 2010. The series aired on Canal+ in prime-time in late May 2010. IFC Films
IFC Films
IFC Films is an American film distribution company based in New York, owned by AMC Networks. It distributes independent films and documentaries under the IFC Films, Sundance Selects and IFC Midnight. It operates the IFC Center....
acquired all US rights to both the mini-series and the theatrical version. The former premiered on the Sundance Channel on October 11, 2010 shown over three nights, while both versions received a theatrical release with only the shorter version available on video on demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
. Carlos won the 2010 Golden Globe award for the 'Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television'.
Cast
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Édgar Ramírez Edgar Ramirez Édgar Filiberto Ramírez Arellano is a Venezuelan actor. He played Carlos in the 2010 French-German biopic series Carlos, a role for which he won the César Award for Most Promising Actor at the César Awards 2011. He also played "Paz", a CIA assassin in the movie The Bourne Ultimatum.Ramírez... |
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (Carlos the Jackal Carlos the Jackal Ilich Ramírez Sánchez , better known as Carlos the Jackal, is a Venezuelan pro-Palestinian currently serving a life sentence in France for shooting to death two French secret agents and a Lebanese informer in 1975.... ) |
| Alexander Scheer | Johannes Weinrich Johannes Weinrich Johannes Weinrich is a German left-wing political militant. Weinrich was a founder of the Revolutionary Cells and later became a close aide to Carlos the Jackal... |
| Nora von Waldstätten | Magdalena Kopp Magdalena Kopp Cecilina Magdalena Kopp was born in Neu-Ulm, Bavaria in 1948. She was a photographer and member of the Frankfurt Revolutionary Cells . She is known for being the wife and accomplice of political militant Ilich Ramírez Sánchez also known as "Carlos the Jackal".- Early life :Magdalena Kopp grew up in... |
| Christoph Bach | Hans-Joachim Klein Hans-Joachim Klein Hans-Joachim Klein is a former member of the German left-wing militant group Revolutionary Cells . In 1975 Klein participated in an attack on OPEC headquarters in Vienna organized by Carlos the Jackal, in which he was seriously injured. He publicly renounced political violence two years later... ("Angie") |
| Ahmad Kaabour Ahmad Kaabour Ahmad Kaabour is a Lebanese singer, music composer and actor renowned in the Arab world.-Background:Kaabour was born in Beirut in 1955 and was raised to the sound of his father's violin, which cultivated his musical background alongside other influences.In 1982, he graduated from the Lebanese... |
Wadie Haddad Wadie Haddad Wadie Haddad , also known as Abu Hani, was a Palestinian doctor of medicine and the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's armed wing... |
| Susanne Wuest | Edith Heller |
| Talal Jurdi | Kamal al-Issawi ("Ali") |
| Anna Thalbach | Inge Viett |
| Julia Hummer | Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann was a West German political militant associated with Movement 2 June and the Second Generation Red Army Faction. She was the wife of the J2M terrorist Norbert Kröcher.-Early life:... ("Nada") |
| Razane Jammal | Lana Jarrar |
| Rodney El Haddad | Anis Naccache ("Khalid") |
Overview
Initially, Carlos was to focus on the terrorist’s capture in Sudan in 1994 and run only 90 minutes. However, once director Olivier Assayas agreed to make the film and he conducted extensive research, he realized that there was much more to explore with the man and the times he lived in: "I felt it was the fate of one man and, in a certain way, the story of one generation, plus a meditation on time, history, fate and issues more universal than the specific history of Carlos". Former foreign correspondent and Le MondeLe Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
editor Stephen Smith compiled the film's research, some of which came from the files of intelligence agencies that became available after the fall of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
when files from former Soviet Bloc countries surfaced. Some of the film's dialogue came from tape recordings made by the Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, the secret police of the former East Germany. Made with a budget of $18 million, Carlos was Assayas' first foray into television. Originally, he was not interested in the project because it seemed "too crazy and too complicated". He was drawn to the project because it allowed him to make a film dealing with recent history and real people. He said, "not long ago, the idea of making a film about Carlos would have scared French producers, but nowadays I sense that we're being encouraged to make films that have a contemporary dimension". Actor Edgar Ramirez said, "What we're trying to do is demystify him. This guy who supposedly had everything figured out was not as keen as he was said to be. The public and historical image was as history's big manipulator but in many moments of his life, he was being manipulated".
Initially, Assayas was worried about finding the right actor to play Carlos because they need, "the shoulders and the charisma to carry this kind of movie on his back". Fortunately, he cast Ramirez who, like the real Carlos, is a Venezuelan and his family came from the same small Western Andean state. The actor described Carlos as, "a bit of a monster, a bit of a dreamer, a bit of an idealist, a bit of an assassin, a mixture of everything, full of contradictions, and that's what made him interesting to me". The production was shot in seven months across three continents in countries such as Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Lebanon, and Morocco. The film was shot mostly in English with passages in French, Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Arabic, German, Russian, Dutch and Japanese. As filming continued, Ramirez put on 35 pounds in order to resemble Carlos's overweight physical condition at the time of his capture. The final two hours of the film were shot in sequence.
The 5½ hour version of Carlos was screened out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival
2010 Cannes Film Festival
The 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 12 to May 23, 2010, in Cannes, France. The Cannes Film Festival, hailed as being one of the most recognized and prestigious film festivals worldwide, was founded in 1946. It consists of having films screened in and out of competition during the...
on May 19, 2010. The series aired on Canal Plus in prime-time in late May 2010. In November 2009, IFC Films
IFC Films
IFC Films is an American film distribution company based in New York, owned by AMC Networks. It distributes independent films and documentaries under the IFC Films, Sundance Selects and IFC Midnight. It operates the IFC Center....
acquired all US rights to both the mini-series and the theatrical version. The former premiered on the Sundance Channel on October 11, 2010 and was shown over three nights, while both versions received a theatrical release with only the shorter version available on video on demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
.
Soundtrack
Initially, Assayas planned to use several songs by The FeeliesThe Feelies
The Feelies are a rock band from Haledon, New Jersey. They formed in 1976 and disbanded in 1992 having released four albums. The band reunited in 2008 and most recently released an album in 2011....
on the soundtrack but shortly before post-production was completed he was informed that members of the band did not want their music associated with terrorism. The director remembers, "We ended up managing to keep one song for a scene that did not involve any kind of terroristic activity. But I had to completely reinvent the whole score". He ended up using several songs by Wire
Wire (band)
Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
.
The soundtrack includes:
- Loveless Love by The FeeliesThe FeeliesThe Feelies are a rock band from Haledon, New Jersey. They formed in 1976 and disbanded in 1992 having released four albums. The band reunited in 2008 and most recently released an album in 2011....
- Dreams Never End by New OrderNew OrderNew Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...
- Terebellum by Fripp & EnoFripp & EnoFripp & Eno is an ambient musical side project composed of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. The duo have released four studio albums. The album Headcandy was also essentially a collaboration between the two, though credited just to Eno. The music created by this pair is entirely instrumental and has...
- All Night Party by A Certain RatioA Certain RatioA Certain Ratio are a Post-punk band formed in 1977 in Manchester, England. While originally part of the punk rock movement, they soon added funk and dance elements to their sound. They are sometimes referred to as "post punk funk"...
- Ahead by WireWire (band)Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
- Forces at Work by The FeeliesThe FeeliesThe Feelies are a rock band from Haledon, New Jersey. They formed in 1976 and disbanded in 1992 having released four albums. The band reunited in 2008 and most recently released an album in 2011....
- Sonic Reducer by The Dead BoysThe Dead BoysThe Dead Boys were an American punk rock band from Cleveland, Ohio. Among the first wave of early punk bands, the Dead Boys were initially active from 1976 to 1979, briefly reuniting in 1987, 2004 and 2005.-Formation and 1970s punk rock era:...
- Dot Dash by WireWire (band)Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
- Drill by WireWire (band)Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
- The 15th by WireWire (band)Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
- Sharing by Satisfaction
- Pure by The Lightning Seeds
- La Pistola y el Corazon by Los LobosLos LobosLos Lobos are a multiple Grammy Award–winning American Chicano rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional Spanish and Mexican music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños.-History:The...
- El Sueno Americano by La PortuariaLa PortuariaLa Portuaria is an Argentine rock band formed at the beginning of the 1990s. The band developed a fusion sound, constructing Latin rhythms upon a base strongly influenced by jazz and rhythm'n'blues. The line up included Christian Basso on bass and Sebastián Schachtel on keyboards, with Diego...
Carlos' reaction and lawsuit
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the real-life 'Carlos', has seen extracts of Assayas' film and his lawyer has threatened legal action to prevent its general release, arguing that it could prejudice future trial hearings for Carlos who faces trial for at least four more attacks in France. He read the screenplay and criticized it for its "deliberate falsifications of history, and lies". He was specifically unhappy with a sequence depicting a hostage-taking by his gang at the 1975 OPECOPEC
OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...
conference in Vienna and how his methods were depicted: "Showing hysterical men waving submachine guns and threatening people is completely ridiculous," he insisted. "Things didn't happen like that. These were professionals, commandos of a very high standard". His lawyer tried to block the film's release, arguing that Carlos had a right to see it beforehand, but the judge dismissed the complaint on the grounds that it violated Assayas' freedom of expression. His lawyer plans to bring two more lawsuits, one that argues the film breaches pre-trial judicial secrecy laws and a second that demands Carlos be paid royalties for his life's role in providing material for the scriptwriters.
Cannes reaction
Carlos has received widespread critical acclaim. Review aggregation website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gives the film a score of 93% based on reviews from 59 critics, with an average score of 8.1/10. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
gave the film a weighted score of 94/100, based on 30 critics, which it ranks as "universal acclaim". indieWIRE's Todd McCarthy found the film to be "a dynamic, convincing and revelatory account of a notorious revolutionary terrorist’s career that rivets the attention during every one of its 321 minutes" and praised Assayas' "ever-propulsive style that creates an extraordinary you-are-there sense of verisimilitude, while Edgar Ramirez inhabits the title role with arrogant charisma of Brando in his prime. It's an astonishing film". In his review for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Steven Zeitchik wrote, "How good is Olivier Assayas' Carlos? Think of The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Identity (2002 film)
The Bourne Identity is a 2002 American spy film loosely based on Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name. It stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac attempting to discover his true identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the Central Intelligence Agency . The film also stars Franka...
with more substance, or Munich
Munich (film)
Munich is a 2005 historical fiction film about the Israeli government's secret retaliation attacks after the massacre of Israeli athletes by the Black September terrorist group during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The film stars Eric Bana and was produced and directed by Steven Spielberg...
with more of a pulse, and you begin to have a sense of what the French filmmaker accomplished with this globetrotting and epic look at one man's rise to the station of international guerrilla leader and terrorist celebrity". In his review for USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, Anthony Breznican wrote, "The closest cousin to Carlos, cinematically speaking, might be There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is a 2007 drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!. It tells the story of a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and...
- another epic view inside a mind of twisted humanity". In his review for Time Out London, Geoff Andrew wrote, "Certainly, the film doesn't feel anything like television. It's shot in Scope, boasts the fleet way with narrative, camera movement and cutting that are characteristic of Assayas at his best and has a sense of scale, depth and seriousness of purpose that is esssentially cinematic", but felt that "the third and final part runs out of steam a little". Sight and Sound magazine's Nick James called the film, "a breathtaking political epic", and felt that there were, "brilliant scenes aplenty". In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...
wrote, "Carlos is gripping stuff, despite its incongruously fashionable rock soundtrack and a grossly over-played final section. The extended account of the OPEC caper includes the festival's best hour of filmmaking this side of Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
's Film Socialisme and would make a terrific movie in its own right".
However, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
magazine's Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
wrote, "But as electrifying as some of it is, I wish that Assayas had made Carlos at once shorter and richer. I wish it were more than an episodic series of galvanizingly staged plots and executions and mishaps". In his review for the Boston Globe, Wesley Morris felt that the film was, "hardly dumb. But it peaks early and never returns to the sharper ideas and sharper filmmaking of the second of its three sections". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "And Carlos, while matching the Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
and Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
films in length and breadth, misses out on depth ... No masterpiece, Assayas' movie is a fast-paced, knowing trip through two decades of violence on two continents". In her review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Manohla Dargis
Manohla Dargis
Manohla Dargis is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with A.O. Scott. She was formerly a chief film critic for the Los Angeles Times, the film editor at the LA Weekly, and a film critic at The Village Voice. She has written for a variety of publications, including Film Comment and...
wrote, "Played by Mr. Ramirez with jolts of charisma and, smartly, little of the usual movie-star charm – if not much depth or nuance – Carlos is a difficult character on which to hang such an ambitious, inherently cumbersome tale".
General reviews
In his review for New York Magazine, David EdelsteinDavid Edelstein
David Edelstein is the chief film critic for New York Magazine, as well as the film critic for NPR's Fresh Air and CBS Sunday Morning. He lives in Brooklyn, New York....
wrote, " In retrospect, it's a bit of a blur, and you might opt to see Assayas' condensed version (alternating in some theaters), which clocks in at a trim two and a half hours. I say go for the whole shebang. Shot by shot, scene by scene, it’s a fluid and enthralling piece of work. I wasn’t bored for a millisecond". In her review for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Betsy Sharkey wrote, "In the end the collaboration between Ramirez and Assayas creates a fiercely astute portrait of a terrorist that neither romanticizes nor demonizes him, but rather dismantles the myth to take some measure of the man underneath. It also brings a searing insight into the early days of the guerrilla-warfare-writ-large style of attack that would evolve into the sort of terrorism we fear most today". However, in his review for the Washington Post, Hank Stuever wrote, "The result is a beautiful film that requires a hardy and determined viewer. I assume that anyone who will recognize and follow each and every event and the historical players portrayed in Carlos must have worked in foreign diplomacy back when the rest of us were busy watching the Fonz".
Awards
Carlos earned high placements in all of the major critics' polls in 2010. It was voted Best Film of the Year in Film CommentFilm Comment
Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...
s annual critics' poll, while both the film and Assayas placed second for best picture and best director in separate polls conducted by IndieWire
IndieWire
indieWIRE is a daily news site for the independent film community. It covers indie, documentary and foreign language films, as well industry news, film festival reports, filmmaker interviews and movie reviews...
and the Village Voice. Ramirez also won for best lead performance in the same IndieWire poll while placing second in the Village Voice for best lead actor.
Carlos was later nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, one for Best Miniseries or TV Movie and Ramirez for Best Actor in a Miniseries. It won the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film. However, because it was released on French television before theatrical distribution, it was ineligible for the Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
.
At the French César Awards 2011
César Awards 2011
The 36th Annual César Awards ceremony was held by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma to honor its selection of the best films of 2010 on February 25, 2011. Jodie Foster was the President of the awards...
, Édgar Ramírez was awarded, for the film version of the TV series, the César Award for Most Promising Actor
César Award for Most Promising Actor
This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Most Promising Actor .-1980s:-1990s:*1991: Gérald Thomassin: Le petit criminel*1992: Manuel Blanc: J'embrasse pas...
.
Edgar Ramirez was also nominated for the 63rd primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor In A Miniserie Or Television film, for the interpret of Carlos.