ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

PAOLO SORRENTINO reveals himself to be the Oliver Stone of Italian filmmakers with the Cannes prize-winner Il Divo. Sorrentino transforms complex events from the 1970s and 1980s into a dazzling tapestry of manipulation, conspiracy and corruption.

A bravura production with an amazing central performance from Tony Servillo and a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack that ranges from Vivaldi to Beth Orton, Il Divo turns politics into grand opera.

Sorrentino is probably best known in Britain for the ice-cool thriller The Consequences Of Love. Il Divo unfolds on a much larger canvas but has the same sense of bravura composition and rigid discipline. The subject is Christian Democrat politician Giulio Andreotti (Tony Servillo), the man who led seven post-War Italian governments.

Servillo plays him as an inscrutable figure who has the chilly personality of a vampire and always appears to glide along corridors rather than walking like a normal person. The film tries to examine what lies beneath his implacable features as it touches on his links to the Mafia and his possible involvement in the suspicious deaths of key journalists, judges and fellow politicians who tried to fight the cancer of corruption at the heart of Italian society.

You don’t need to know anything about 20th century Italian history to enjoy Il Divo, but a little knowledge probably helps. Sorrentino serves up his mesmerising story with such style and panache that it is accessible to anyone, and Servillo’s portrait of this mercurial modern day Machiavelli deserves to win prizes .

Nationwide release

Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Cast: Tony Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto, Fanny Ardant, Giulio Bosetti, Flavio Bucci, Carlo Buccirosso, Giorgio Colangeli
Screenwriters: Paolo Sorrentino
Certificate: 15
Running time: 118 mins
Country: Italy
Year: 2008