You have seen the classic Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) movie "Sea of Sand" as well as "Ice Cold in Alex" (both from 1958!) and are looking for some other good movies about WWII in the desert? Well, recently I saw an Italian film about El Alamein that really made an impression on me.
There have been more movies made about the war in North Africa than most can imagine, both British, US, Italian and French films. In 2008 even a Czech & Slovak production was released, "Tobruk", about two Czechoslovak soldiers fighting in Tobruk. I have not yet been able to get hold of the latter, but here follows a short review of the probably latest Italian movie, marketed as either just "el-Alamein" or "El Alamein - The Line of Fire" (In Italian: "El Alamein - La linea del fuoco"). It is a 2002 film written and directed by Enzo Monteleone that lets the viewer see the Second battle of El Alamein from an Italian perspective. This alone is refreshing, as most war movies shown here in Scandinavia have an American or British perspective. But aside from that it is quite simply a good movie - not the best war movie I have ever seen, but certainly among the ten best.
"el-Alamein" does not really focus on one soldier, although Private Serra (Paolo Briguglia), an enthusiastic student who has volunteered, holds the film together. I would say that this film is unusually good at portraying a unit, in this case a platoon in the Italian 28th Infantry Regiment. The film brings home the alien atmosphere of the desert and how the Italians adapt to it. While I am no expert at Italian uniforms, small arms and vehicles I believe the film makers have gone to unusually great lengths to give it an authentic and gritty look. In some scenes they have been forced to use modern APCs as tanks - but they have done this in a very clever way, making it difficult to recognize their true shape. Generally speaking, almost every scene in this film has an amazingly authentic look and the desert itself is filmed with great talent.
There are few scenes with German and British troops, but that is quite all right, because after a short while you really want to find out what will happen to the Italian characters.
Now, if only some film director could realize how much movie audiences need a colour movie about the LRDG. Then, if that director could find the people behind the amazing look of "el-Alamein"...
No comments:
Post a Comment