Comandante review – fun, if you ignore the voice in your head telling you it’s wrong – The Guardian
Hollywood is aware of precisely how one can play it in terms of portraying a second world conflict German officer. Get an actor like Christoph Waltz, stick him in a Nazi uniform, and have him strangle a kitten for enjoyable earlier than the opening credit end. However in terms of Italian characters from the identical interval, you possibly can typically sense some cultural confusion kicking in. Absolutely Italy is that good place with the gnocchi and olive oil? Onerous to think about they have been … fascists?
Comandante, the brand new movie from Edoardo De Angelis, gained’t do a lot to make clear that disconnect, though it truly hails from Italy and is likely to be anticipated to do a bit extra soul-searching. Naval officer Salvatore Todaro (Pierfrancesco Favino) could be very a lot the pleasant face of the Italian conflict effort. Set for probably the most half aboard the submarine Comandante Cappellini within the early Forties, it’s a dramatisation of the sinking of the Kabalo, a Belgian ship carrying British conflict provides, and the following rescue of 26 shipwrecked Belgian mariners from a watery grave by Todaro and his crew.
Not that the Belgians are notably grateful: two of them try to sabotage their saviours’ vessel whereas muttering darkly about fascists. In Todaro’s response to this incident, there’s the faint sense that the pair have reneged on a type of gents’s settlement, as if it’s the peak of rudeness to try to take down an Axis powers’ submarine throughout wartime. Todaro is introduced as a person so noble he virtually appears to misconceive how conflict is meant to work. And maybe he actually was: rebuking a German officer who finds Todaro’s “hate the sport, not the participant” coverage ludicrous, the person reportedly stated: “I’m Italian, I’ve 2,000 years of civilisation behind me.” You’ll be able to’t assist however marvel because the credit roll and it turns into obvious that the movie was made in collaboration with the Italian navy, who Comandante is for, and what its agenda is.
However for those who’re ready to disregard that boring little voice in your head that insists on whispering “is that this movie utilizing a historic case research of 1 cuddly outlier to launder the wartime popularity of the Italian navy?”, there’s a lot to take pleasure in right here. De Angelis provides some muscular film-making, with first rate motion sequences. Tableaux of Todaro’s homelife are rendered within the type of a faintly kitsch Dolce & Gabbana advert: you’re kicking again on a night with a child in a crib, your scorching spouse in pearls and a silk negligée performs the piano, a marble chess set casually arrange within the nook. There’s a humorous sequence the place the Belgians educate the Italians how one can make chips. It stops simply in need of having the submarine floor so the crew can play a sport of soccer on the deck on Christmas Day, but it surely’s that type of movie.
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