It’s not the subtitles that make this Italian stream-of-non-sequitors maddening. It’s the endless cascade of names and events printed on screen, the blur of people and events that swirl around the inscrutable “villain” at the heart of the drama — Giulio Andreotti, capo di capi of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, played as an inscrutable, gnome-shaped sphinx by Toni Servillo.
Murders of rivals, journalists and informants dash by, all pointing to a smoking gun — the party’s de facto condemnation of kidnapped Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 and the “diary” he left behind, all clutter Paolo Sorrentino’s stylish but confusing film. Il Divo is like watching your first-ever cricket match. You don’t know the players, the rules or the history of the nation that invented it. But it’s all here for you in one confusing 110-minute parade.
Screening at: 4 p.m. Saturday, April 4, Enzian; 2 p.m. Sunday, April 5, Regal.
