Some members of the media have been raving about an Italian film Renaissance after "Gomorra,"and  "IL Divo" won top awards at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival ("IL Divo" earned the Prix Du Jury, but a French film called "The Class" won the Palm D’Or which is the highest honor.)  

I was not completely satisfied with the potent but rather formless, "Gomorra," but "ll Divo" is an unqualified masterpiece. It may be the strongest, most significant Italian import since 1998's "Life is Beautiful;" although "The Best of Youth" was also as marvelous and created an even more epic grandeur "Il Divo" is a magnificent, multi layered Italian biopic that combines the epic scope of "The Godfather" with the day-to-day political intrigue of  the great PBS miniseries, "To Play the King." The film is about Giulio Andreotti, an Italian politician whose career collapsed in scandal related to overwhelming corruption charges which linked him to the mob. (He makes Bloggo look like Mother Theresa in comparison.) 

The film played at the European Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Center, and it will open at the Music Box Theater on Friday, July 10. It is not completely accessible, and it might be too Italian to gain a wide audience in America. 

The film's full Italian title is "Il Divo: La Spettacolare Vita di Giulio Andreotti (which roughly means "The Divo: The Spectacular Life of  Guilio Andretti,)" . To call this statesman, politician and writer, a "divo" or "superstar" is a bit ironic.  On one hand he was a commanding and a major public figure in Italian culture for decades, but on the other hand, he usually exercised his power behind closed doors.  

Andreotti was able to survive and even thrive in Italy's comparatively unstable government. He served as the  prime minister for two terms (in 1972-7, 1976-79, and 1989-92 and in several other  high ranking offices under the Christian Democrat party ticket.  He also became a kind of good will ambassador that represented his whole country. He was uncommonly powerful and corrupt, but this centrist was able to stay in office because the country feared the extreme right and left. 

The film is anchored by a remarkable self assured, and complex performance by Toni Servillo as Andreotti.  He plays him as a coldly charismatic wheeler dealer politician who lets nothing get in his way. If the film is accurate, then Andreotti was the consummate Machiavellian power broker.   

Servillo portrays him as a multi dimensional, often contradictory figure that will do anything for his own career, but he disguises his ambition as altruism (In his eyes, all his alleged crimes were for the good of his country). There is also a suggestion that the office itself and the power that came with it was corrupting. 

He did however find some opposition. One journalist (it’s not clear whether the exchange is real or in Andreotti’s head) confronts him face to face regarding his nebulous past.  He announces that because of Andreotti's multiple connections to convicted felons that he must be either the unluckiest man alive or a master criminal.   

Later on during Andreotti’s trial, it came out that the mob assassinated a journalist  as a courtesy to Andreotti.  Other troubling testimonies revealed that Andreotti was actually initiated in the mafia, and that he had knowledge and/or took part in a scheme involving the Vatican bank, the Christian democrats, and organized crime. 

Although  Andreotti was charged with working with the mob and even becoming a formal member (through a blood right), at a certain point he turned around and prosecuted them There are a few eerie parallels between him and other politicians such as Bobby Kennedy and Nixon. 

At one point a man who represents Southern Italian interests including the Camorra warns Andreotti not to institute any fancy anti mob policies. He warned "You need the South to win, in the North they are all communists." The funny thing is that when I was in Italy, the Northern Italians said the same thing about the southerns. 

"Il Divo" is a shattering portrayal of a man who went very far, only to end up losing almost everything he truly valued.  Because of its depth and non-linear nature, this great biopic can be seen as the Italian "Citizen Kane." It tells us as much about the Italian culture as it does about Andreotti.