THE MAN WHO HIJACKED THE WORLD.

I started watching one of the considerably shorter movie versions that were edited down from this original miniseries, thinking that would suffice. About an hour into the story I realized that this won’t do – the abridged version would not be good enough, so I got the miniseries on DVD. Olivier Assayas’s epic, which virtually introduced the veteran director to the world outside of France, deserves to be seen in its entirety.

Trained in Jordan
In 1973, the Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramírez Sanchez (Édgar Ramírez) has been trained in Jordan by the far-left terror organization PFLP, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. His opportunity to rise among the ranks comes after going through with several attacks in London that year. The PFLP puts him under the command of a man called “André” (Fadi Abi Samra) who coordinates operations for the organization in Paris. Ilich, who now calls himself “Carlos”, takes part in a raid on the French embassy in The Hague along with militants from the Communist Japanese Red Army group.

Things heat up when André is arrested and pressured by French intelligence agents into exposing Carlos. The man who is about to become one of the most influential terrorists ever faces a great challenge, one that will cement his reputation, but also result in a lifetime sentence in 1997.

Long story that moves fast
We follow Carlos’s adventures in the complex world of international terrorism over a span of twenty years, up until his arrest in Sudan in 1994. Many details about what he did or didn’t do remains sketchy and the filmmakers are clear about it; this is a piece of fiction… but in all honesty, it can’t reasonably be very far from the truth.

This is above all an ambitious chronicle of the world Carlos inhabited. In the beginning, Ilich is an ideologue, an angry young man who fervently believes in Marxism and the need to fight for leftist causes, and the liberation of Palestine in particular, with violent means. His association with the PFLP becomes a learning experience but also convinces not only the organization’s leaders but other Middle Eastern power players who sympathize with the Palestinians that the Latin American is to be trusted as a fighter and true believer. However, it also becomes clear to many of them that he’s not predictable; he’s too independent. Over the years, Carlos allies himself with various leftist terror groups, especially the German Revolutionary Cells, one of whose key members, Magdalena Kopp, eventually marries Carlos. In the end, though, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Carlos becomes a has-been and his final years as a free man are pathetic. The depiction of the era, including locations, clothes, etc. is very convincing, along with Ramírez’s breakthrough performance; we never really feel like we get all that close to Carlos (his women come and go without making much of an impression), but he’s formidable and we still desperately want to see what happens to him even though we detest his hypocritical views and egomaniacal behavior.

It’s a long story, but it moves fast with a lot of action… and it’s not without an absurd sense of humor, as in the hysterically clumsy rocket-propelled grenade attacks on El Al planes in Paris.

Carlos the Jackal is still in prison, fuming over how he’s portrayed in the miniseries. It is interesting to note how his unapologetic rhetoric fits right into how the filmmakers view him. His complaints are hard to stomach considering the crimes he committed. In fact, this miniseries helps bring him down from an iconic master terrorist status to a mere selfish human being.

Carlos 2010-France-Germany. Made for TV. 340 min. Color. Produced by Daniel Leconte, Jens Meurer. Directed by Olivier Assayas. Teleplay: Olivier Assayas, Daniel Leconte, Dan Franck. Cinematography: Yorick Le Saux, Denis Lenoir. Editing: Luc Barnier, Marion Monnier. Cast: Édgar Ramírez (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez), Alexander Scheer (Johannes Weinrich), Nora von Waldstätten (Magdalena Kopp), Christoph Bach, Ahmad Kaabour, Fadi Abi Samra.

Trivia: Shown on TV in either three or six parts. Also released in theaters in 187 and 166 min. versions.

Golden Globe: Best Miniseries. European Film Awards: Best Editor.

Last word: “I became addicted. Once you get into that stuff and you start, every single new biography of Carlos you get your hands on, any book that deals with the marginal aspects of his life gives a new light to this or that chapter. Checking things on the Internet, looking up obscure directors – it’s like adding pieces to a big puzzle. The writing was really exciting. The writing was fun. I suppose that in the end what was the most important element in it is that at an early stage, I realized this was way too long. Somehow I constantly wrote this extremely long film, having in the back of my mind, ‘How can I make it shorter and shorter and shorter, because it’s too long? I’m not going to get away with a film on that scale!'” (Assayas, A.V. Club)

ABOVE AVERAGE

IMDb