Film of the Week: Il Divo

Fascinated by the inner workings of Italian politics?
Me neither, and I can't say that Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo" got me much more interested in the mobbed-up Machiavellians who bounced in and out of power in Rome during the latter third of the last century.
But Sorrentino's super-stylish approach to filming intricate, conspiratorial machinations that many Italians, let alone anyone else, may have trouble sorting out, makes watching the film a joy. Kind of the opposite effect seen in Jim Jarmusch's lovely but litsless "Limits of Control," "Il Divo's" gorgeous backgrounds and widescreen compositions, enhanced by the most elegant moving camerawork registered in years, make all the Byzantine goings-on easy to swallow, if not follow.
Focusing on one of the later governments and subsequent scandal trial of Christian Democrat poobah Giulio Andreotti, "Il Divo" certainly doesn't lack for incident (another welcome difference from the weekend's Jarmusch release). It probably all adds up whether you can keep it straight or not, but regardless, Toni Servillo's cagey, sepulchral central performance anchors the whole thing. Calm, bemused but clearly wise to every major and microscopic shift in the political bioverse, Servillo's Andreotti stalks the corridors of power (often with a phalanx of armed guards) methodically and, with his hunched back and impassive undertaker's face, in an effectively impotent disguise. He's like the Nosferatu of crooked politicians, a Gothic embodiment of corruption as ancient as it is ripped from the headlines.