Olivier Assayas’s best movies, be they ensemble dramas (Late August, Early September and Summer Hours) or twisted genre thrillers (Demonlover, Boarding Gate) feature a restless, nervous vitality, seeking insights into the fragility and fluidity of identities, whether individual, familial or national. In Carlos, Assayas follows the legendary international terrorist Carlos the Jackal (the witty and charismatic Edgar Ramirez) at breakneck speed, tracking the protagonist’s journeys, strategy sessions, negotiations, escapes and love affairs. His film describes the amorality of political alliances and the disintegration of all ideological conviction. Carlos, a fully modern antihero, gradually becomes a symbol of the postmodern political chaos we all inhabit. Shot in seven countries and eleven languages, and breathtakingly precise for every minute of its five and a half hours, Carlos is Assayas’s masterpiece to date. —Larry Gross, Telluride Film Festival

Notes: There will be a 15-minute intermission. Free program books while supplies last.

Tickets
12:15 pm, $8.00 year-round SFFS members, $10.00 general and seniors; 6:45 pm, $13.00 year-round SFFS members, $15.00 general, $10.00 seniors. At the Sundance Kabuki all seats are reserved. Tickets are available through the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas box office, at kiosks in the lobby and online at sundancecinemas.com/kabuki with print-at-home capability. San Francisco Film Society members receive discounted admission only to SFFS Screen programs and only at the box office, not online or at the lobby kiosks.



Written by Olivier Assayas, Dan Franck. Photographed by Yorick Le Saux, Denis Lenoir. With Edgar Ramirez, Alexander Sheer, Nora Von Walstätten, Christophe Bach, Ahmad Kaabour (330 min, Blu-ray, in English, French and German with subtitles, IFC FIlms/Sundance Channel)