Carmelo and Rosuzza his wife reunited against the backdrop of Italian Unification events: individual vs. collective story lines.

Blasetti known for other historical epics, takes the opportunity to tell the story of Italy’s unification from a personal point of view of a Sicilian patriot named Carmelo (Giuseppe Gulino) on a mission to reach Garibaldi’s headquarters in Genoa and get his help to rescue Sicily from the occupying Spanish Bourbons and German mercenaries. On his way, Carmelo runs into various Italian characters representing different dialects and views regarding the boiling political climate.

The film predated the Neorealism genre that typically referred to as starting with Roberto Rossellini’s Roma, città aperta – Rome, Open City (1945). However, you can already see the genre’s key ingredients at play: usage of non-professional actors, movie shot on location, and description of social rough realities from a commoner point of view. Stylistically, this film is a far cry from Blasetti’s light-hearted 1954 Too Bad She’s Bad – Peccato che sia una Canaglia another precursor. This time, to Italian comedy (Commedia all’italiana) genre that formally started in 1958 with Mario Monicelli’s Big Deal on Madonna Street – I Soliti Ignoti. Indeed, an interesting and prescient work evolution.

The camera movement takes a role of inquisitive “embedded journalist-like” that follows the events either as a follower of Carmelo on his journey, but also as an objective spectator of historical events such as the panoramic battlefield scenes. I especially liked the opening scene where you can see a close up behind window bars and then zooming out to reveal the context of a Sicilian village under rough Bourbon occupation – a simple, yet a powerful way to express the state of imprisonment.

The screening followed by panel discussion with Professors Alexander Stille and Stefano Albertini, and director Mario Martone. Here are a few pointers I found interesting:

• Director Mario Martone: His film Noi Credevamo – We Believed (2010) was also shown in the festival and provided a modern view of Risoregimento through the personal story of three friends joining activist Giuseppe Mazzini’s political movement (Giovine Italia) and the impact on their lives afterwards. Overall, there are not many films about Italy’s unification. Blasetti in this film is rather unique by explicitly conveying the brutality and physical rough aspects of the period, woven through a personal story. This technique makes the historical event more believable as viewers have tangible “real-life handles” to relate to.

• Prof. Albertini: The film is not about Garibaldi, in fact we don’t see him much throughout the film; only the facial reactions of soldiers listening to him speak. With that, Blasetti’s message is simple: The Risoregimento (Italy’s unification) was not about the larger than life leaders, it was about real people, with real stories that despite their cultural differences joined forces. This message of unity is interesting to examine against today’s Italian politics, where the separatist Northern League party for example refuses to celebrate the unification and sees it as a waste of money. Another difference, back in the 60’s Italians did not celebrate unification with flags, as it was frowned upon as radical, whereas in this year’s celebrations flags were widely used.

• Prof. Stille: Blasetti’s technique keeping Garibaldi’s role at a distance and focusing more on people around him processing his impact, was similarly adapted in Francesco Rosi 1962’s Salvatore Giuliano, the famous Sicilian gangster. It forces the viewers to conjure their own opinion about the renowned personality based on the impact of their emotional projection. The film also carries a gender element as Carmelo’s officer commands him not to move from his post to see his wife he hasn’t seen a month just a few miles away. The officer gives as an example Garibaldi who his wife had died, while he was away to reinforce Carmelo’s obedience and patriotism.

So as you can see this masterpiece has dual historical values: getting you introduced to an important chapter in Italy’s history, while at the same time experiencing initial ingredients of Neorealism – a cardinal chapter in Italy’s and the world’s cinematic history.

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Portraying a common phenomenon at the time by zooming in on a single representative story, Rossellini picks the period right after the September 8th 1943 declaration of the Armistice between Italy and the Allied armed forces who occupied the southern part of the country. During this period of transition, many Italians in the northern parts, still controlled by the Fascists, provided shelter to Allied POWs, even at the clear risk to their lives if caught.

The film tells the story of Esperia (Giovanna Ralli), a black marketeer that hides three soldiers (American, Brit and Russian) in her attic in Nazi occupied Rome. The soldiers develop deep relationships among themselves and their host despite the ongoing communication challenge, undoubtedly to show that helping the other doesn’t require much other than good will in the face of hardships.

Helping Esperia in her trying quest, is her boyfriend Renato (Renato Balducci) that continues with his reckless amorous lover portrayal he did two years earlier, in one of the emblematic masterpieces of the Italian comedy genre;  Big Deal on Madonna Street – I Soliti Ignoti (Mario Monicelli – 1958). This typecasting for the sake of comic relief, I find works well here.

The film boasts Rossellini’s signature rough black and white color template that reinforces his documentaristic style to convey people and events as they were. In fact, the film opens like a news bulletin with a voice over in English that sets the historical context for the plot.

And like in most Rossellini’s films, his brother Renzo Rossellini provides a score that offers a continuous tensed ambiance to support the immense risk Esperia took on herself constantly surrounded by invisible prying eyes that can abruptly compromise her safety and that of the soldiers.

With all the craziness of war around us, I found it still amazing that despite all mankind achievements, the human brain can sometimes be so binarily wired; one or zero, black or white love or hate. I call for realignment.

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Open wide spaces of panoramic desert views, soldiers perched high on their guard in an ancient, semi destructed fortress, waiting for an unseen enemy – the tartars – that for years and years never comes. Despite this inactivity, there is a total obedience to rules and regulations in the face of a non-existent enemy, which at times creates social frictions as one fellow soldier forgets the day’s password and get shot by the sentry.

The film brings about a philosophical and I would say timely question, what do you do when you’re surrounded by omni-present threat that never materialized to the point when it finally begins to appear in the horizon – its  occurences are automatically hushed down among the troops in order to retain the status quo of inaction.

There are two options: You can acknowledge danger’s presence and be prepared when it arrives and act; or you can completely ignore it and sink into bored passivity. The choice presented in this film, is literally keeping a middle ground of watching the horizon, yet ignoring what gradually manifested itself.

Sounds familiar no? A lot like what drove our global economy down these days. The signs for the looming tsunami were there all along, but the watch guards chose to ignore their existence completely and treat them as false mirage.

In this classic masterpiece, director Valerio Zurlini adapted Dino Buzzati‘s 1940 novel, shot in Iran’s Bam enigmatic Citadel, boasting Europe’s most famous actors such as Vittorio Gassman, Philippe Noiret, and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film was produced by Jacques Perrin, you may recognize by his later role as older Toto in 1988 Cinema Paradiso and brought to life by the tense score of maestro Ennio Morricone.

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In tempi come questi, la fuga è l’unico mezzo che rimane
per mantenersi vìvi e continuare a sognare.

In times like these, escape is the only mean available
for keeping alive and continue dreaming.

- Henry Laborit

This film opens up with this quote to set the stage for a simple truth; sometimes we need to go out of our comfort zones, venture into new environments, take a few steps back – to allow us to evaluate from afar our goals and dreams.

Director Gabriele Salvatores brings together a group of soldiers during world war II that as part of their mission OC (Observation & Communication) found themselves deserted on a Greek island. This “bubble existence” on this Homeric island, sheltering the soldiers from the havocs of war brings the troupe to evaluate their personal priorities and their interests in life. For example, lieutenant Montini is connected back to his painting as he remodeled the local church, piccolo Farina finally finds love with Vassilissa, the local prostitute turned Taverna owner.

The film has three distinct parts: the troupe arrival on the island, life on the island, and the reunion on the island. You may consider this as new experience creation, living the experience and finally fast-forwarding into the future by revisiting the experience many years later. The first part deals with the transition of the troupe from the external world of war and their clear duties in it into second part – the idyllic life on the island where out of being disconnected, the soldiers are left to explore their personal truths. Finally, the last part offers another perspective from the advantage of time passed, about what this experience on the island really meant.

All soldiers provide a brilliant performance reflecting diverse backgrounds of different parts of Italy. This mixed bag of characters offers plenty moments of humor and memorable dialogs that will keep you smiling days after watching.

And lastly the film is supported by the enchanting soundtrack by Giancarlo Bigazzi that supports the slow, carefree Mediterranean life on the Island of Oblivion as the soldiers call it. In this sense, the film is both about the essence of escape and at the same time provides escape to viewers following the narrative within the confines of entertainment as an outlet from the mundane. If you’re still unconvinced, well the film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991.

The final scene shows sergente Lorusso sitting accompanied by his now older comrades, turning his head back into an unknown point. I’d say this simple head movement is like looking back into the past, saying we shouldn’t wait a lifetime to do the things we really care about.

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