‘Comandante’ Review: Visceral Italian Naval Drama Wrecked by Its Own Worthiness – Hollywood Reporter

The formidably versatile Italian star Pierfrancesco Favino (The Traitor, Nostalgia) does many spectacular issues within the WWII submarine story, Comandante. He wears an asphyxiating again brace that appears painful. He speaks in a convincing Venetian accent. He does yoga. He barks orders to his haggard crew, together with that all of them eat gnocchi. He shoots heroin at one level. However most of all, he bravely and boldly saves two dozen Belgian sailors from drowning at sea, which makes his character, Salvatore Todaro, a veritable struggle hero.

That final half is heard loud and clear, many instances over, in director Edoardo De Angelis’ thundering tribute to a person who defied fascist orders and prolonged a hand to his fellow seafarers, regardless of the very fact they might have been supplying the Allies with weapons. Why he does this appears much less vital on this handsomely made, if awfully deliberate, maritime drama than the truth that he merely did it — and extra importantly, that he was Italian.

This isn’t to say that Comandante — which opened the 80^th Venice Movie Competition after Luca Guadagnino’s tennis romance, Challengers, pulled out because of the Hollywood strikes — is both a patriotic interval piece or a jingoistic wartime flick, although it’s a little bit of each at instances. The message De Angeles appears to be relaying to his fellow countrymen (it’s unlikely the movie will see a lot worldwide play) is certainly one of common humanism, particularly at a time when African migrants are tragically drowning off of Italy’s shores.

It’s due to this fact a laudable message, but it surely’s typically an excessive amount of of 1. As quickly because the Comandante opens his mouth, he appears to be speechifying, as if Favino’s traces have been written by a political pundit. The movie performs significantly better after we merely get to observe Todaro and his crew arduous at work, both taking pictures down enemy plane or sweating out some shut calls as they make their means towards the Atlantic in October 1940, passing by a Strait of Gibraltar filled with lethal naval mines.

De Angelis, whose earlier films (Indivisible, The Vice of Hope) have been small-scale dramas set round his native Naples, exhibits he has the chops for a few of this movie’s strongest set items, together with a gunfight that takes place on a rocky sea at nighttime. Bombs burst in our faces and waves smack us foolish. Males get brutally disfigured and die.

Comandante was shot for under €15 million (over $16 million), but it appears to be like prefer it was made for a number of instances that funds. Manufacturing designer Carmine Gurino’s full-scale rebuild of the unique Cappellini submarine is an admirable centerpiece, whereas the VFX workforce offers just a few memorable particulars, resembling jellyfish floating by as torpedoes explode above them and set the water aflame.

Alongside the imposing Favino, a few of the different actors handle to provide their characters good touches. Giuseppe Brunetti performs the likeable galley cook dinner, Gigino, a born-and-bred Neapolitan who speaks within the dialect and is aware of easy methods to make any Italian meals possible, even when there’s no provides left and all he can do is think about it. The scene the place the Belgian sailors educate him easy methods to cook dinner their nationwide dish, French fries, is cute and heartwarming, and obtained applause through the Venice press screening.

However different issues in Comandante really feel too symbolically apparent or overblown, starting with a gap the place Todaro, whose again was severely injured when he jumped from a airplane throughout a coaching train, is waylaid within the naval base at Livorno alongside together with his adoring spouse, Rina (Silvia D’Amico). Cue Pietro Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rustica: Intermezzo sinfonico” — a observe used most famously by Scorsese for the opening of Raging Bull — which performs over photographs of Rina standing topless, carrying a captain’s hat.

Later, when the Comandante accepts a mission to sail into harmful waters a yr into the Second World Conflict, he makes the primary of many fired-up speeches to his crew. “We’re Italians, and we’re alone,” he tells them, attempting his greatest to differentiate his military from the Nazis they’re aligned with. That perspective proves to be his essential weapon when the submarine takes down a Belgian freighter, and Todaro decides to save lots of its crew — even when his loyal, Ahab-esque first mate (Vittorio Marcon) would quite they drown.

Towards the top, when addressing the freighter’s Flemish captain (Johan Heldenbergh from The Damaged Circle Breakdown), Todaro once more reminds us that he did the nice, courageous deed as a result of he’s Italian. By that time it’s overkill, and it proves that whereas De Angelis is aware of easy methods to create visceral motion and moments of depth, he’s incapable of the slightest trace of subtlety. His message is, once more, a commendable one, particularly at a time when Italy’s far-right authorities is pushing a broad anti-immigration agenda. However that doesn’t imply Comandante must scream it from the rooftops, or from 100 meters underwater, and the result’s a seaworthy movie that’s additionally far too worthy.

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