Il Divo is an Italian movie, and its title derives from the Latin "divus", meaning "God". It is a biographical drama about the former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, 42st Prime Minister, and leader of the Christian Democracy Party. He was the sixth longest-serving leader of Italy after Italian Unification, and the second longest serving after the Second World War. He is considered to have been the most powerful premiere Italy has ever had.
The film begins with Andreotti (Toni Servillo) sharing an inner monologue with the audience, musing that it is nothing short of a miracle that he has survived in politics for as long as he has, whilst his naysayers have fallen by the wayside all around him. His associate have also not fared well, and many have ben murdered, including prominent bankers Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi; Calvi was once Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of Italy's biggest political scandals.
Andreotti was also linked throughout his career with the Mafia. The movie covers the time after Andreotti's seventh general election victory, in 1992, to the Tangentopoli bribes scandal in 1995. The Mani Pulite (Italian for "clean hands") was a nationwide investigation into political corruption in Italy in the 1990s, and as a result many political parties were dissolved all together.
Director Paolo Sorrentino was preoccupied with the theme of particracy of rule - meaning that one single group of people influenced all of the political parties, so that despite the name of the party voters believed they were supporting by putting their X in a box on their voting slips, the same small group of crooked and elite politicians were always running the show. He raises many questions with the film's narrative, chiefly, that of wondering if the will of the people can count at all when the identity of those ruling them never really changes.
The movie was generally very well-received; the acting is universally praised and the musical soundtrack extremely high quality; critics believed that whilst the film would not gain any particular traction outside of Italy, the soundtrack would be able to travel and gain international acclaim. The main critic was Andreotti himself; he walked out of the movie's screening, complaining that the portrayal of him was over the top, and "too much", and that his record would ultimately speak for itself with far more clarity and resonance than Sorrentino's depiction of him.
Paolo Sorrentino received the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival for Il Divo. In addition to directing, he is also a prolific and well-respected author, publishing two novel, and a number of collections of short stories.
