ONE of the few surprises at the Golden Globes two weeks ago -- you'll be forgiven if you've already forgotten about that odd little broadcast -- was the award given to ''Carlos,'' the French director Olivier Assayas's five-hour-plus reconstruction of the life and career of the notorious terrorist of the 1970s and '80s Carlos the Jackal. The award...
''I'm a soldier, I'm not a martyr,'' Carlos the Jackal announces in ''Carlos,''Olivier Assayas's fictionalization of the life and brutal times of the Marxist turned mercenary. Carlos delivers this line in 1975 during a re-creation of a heated exchange with the radical true believers with whom he has taken OPEC ministers hostage. It was one of the...
About 15 minutes into ''Carlos,''Olivier Assayas's excited, exciting, epic dramatization about the international terrorism brand known as Carlos the Jackal, the title character takes a long, loving, vainglorious look in the mirror at his naked body. It's 1974 and after a bungled assassination attempt and an ineffectual bombing, Carlos has just...