Can a film about a seven-time Prime Minister capture the true nature of power?
In short: Paolo Sorrentino’s 2008 biographical drama Il Divo explores the enigmatic life of Giulio Andreotti, Italy’s long-serving Prime Minister. Amidst allegations of Mafia ties and political corruption, the film presents a man who survived his rivals while maintaining power through a system of shadowy alliances and systematic, resource-exchanging political corruption.
Il Divo, which translates to The Divine, offers a stylized look at Giulio Andreotti, a figure who dominated Italian politics for decades. The film opens with a haunting monologue from Andreotti, reflecting on his survival while his associates—including journalist Mino Pecorelli, general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, and bankers Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi—met violent ends. By focusing on his 1992 election, the Tangentopoli scandal, and his 1995 trial, the film attempts to decode the mechanics of the pentapartito, a five-party coalition that governed Italy by preventing a left-wing majority through strategic, often corrupt, resource exchange.
The film’s portrayal of power is rooted in the concept of partitocrazia, or rule by parties, where political actors operate independently of voter will. Critics like Stephen Holden have compared the film’s visual intensity to the works of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, noting that while the complex web of relationships between politicians, the Vatican, and the Mafia can be difficult for non-Italian audiences to decipher, the imagery remains a tour de force. The film earned significant acclaim, including the Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup in 2010.
Andreotti himself was famously unimpressed, walking out of a screening and calling the film scurrilous. Despite his public anger, he later joked that he would be happier if he received a share of the film’s profits. This reaction captures the central tension of the movie: the difficulty of pinning down a man who maintained his position with little explanation, leaving the audience to wonder whether the lack of clarity in the film is a failure of storytelling or an accurate reflection of the murky nature of Italian government itself.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Il divo (film)
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