Venice 2023: Opening film "Comandante" and the latest from Liliani Cavani
Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:00AM by Elisa Giudici
Edoardo De Angelis & Pierfrancesco Favino on the set of "Comandante"
Opening the Venice Film Festival is a daunting enough challenge. Now imagine being called in as a last-minute replacement for Luca Guadagnino’s new film starring Zendaya. Yet, Edoardo De Angelis managed to uphold the honor of Italian cinema admirably. His new film Comandante stands as a notable piece of filmmaking, injecting an interesting angle into the war subgenre of submarine films. To put it in perspective, it holds its own against the likes of The Wolf's Call, a recent European film of similar ambition from 2019, which boated a budget twice the size of Comandante.
A budget of 14 million euros isn't trivial within the national cinematic landscape, where the majority of yearly productions hover around the 1 to 2 million euro mark. This significant financial backing primarily went into meticulously recreating the interior and exterior spaces of the Cappellini submarine. Surprisingly, this endeavor was complicated by the scarcity of photographic references for the original ship or its close counterparts. De Angelis's film underscores a poignant historical reality: the majority of Italy's 120 submarines utilized during World War II met their demise, their crews were lost at sea, resting beneath coral crosses...
Still, Comandante isn't steeped in nostalgia. The film's roots are firmly embedded in Italy's present challenges, particularly the escalating attempts by migrants to reach the country's shores via perilous boat journeys across the Mediterranean. De Angelis stumbled upon Commander Salvatore Todaro’s (Pierfrancesco Favino) narrative through a Coast Guard member, intending to critique a new governmental policy that hindered NGOs from rescuing migrants at sea.
In the film's closing shot, Todaro reflects that "those who disregard the sea's rules and fail to rescue castaways shall be cursed by them." Comandante opens with another impactful quote, this time from a Russian sailor saved by Ukrainians during the 2022 war. Contrary to any misconceptions, Comandante doesn't intend to glorify fascists. Its central figure, a commander hunting British ships in the Atlantic Ocean during 1940, certainly defies this notion. He indeed exhibited heroism by saving 26 men from a Belgian vessel that attacked the Cappellini, all while covertly carrying arms for the enemy. This act etched itself into Marine history.
De Angelis skillfully crafts a compelling genre film brimming with tense action sequences, camaraderie, and several motivational speeches by the remarkable PierFrancesco Favino, the most powerful figure in the Italian Cinema Industry. Regrettably, fully appreciating Favino's superb Venetian accent and his adeptness at using vulgarity to motivate his crew requires an Italian ear.
Perhaps Comandante will be the vehicle that finally converts international audiences to Favino's talent. Undoubtedly, De Angelis toiled diligently to make the narrative accessible to non-Italians, delivering what's expected of Italian representation: a passion for food, music, life, and even a mandolin. Although the instrument’s appearance initially made me shiver due to the instrument's lack of use in Italy for a century or so (sorry Commander Corelli), De Angelis's strength lies in utilizing stereotypes to unveil underlying human truths. It's akin to a contemporary Mediterraneo by Salvatores, reminding viewers of the multifaceted nature of Italy, “a brothel with both filthy and beautiful”.
My second film was L'Ordine Del Tempo from Liliana Cavani (most famous to international audiences for The Night Porter in 1974). Just when an Italian journalist's hopes are raised, there it is: a film so terrible, so tragically flawed, that all you can do is sit and endure, while attempting to anticipate which scene or line of dialogue will become the infamous bit of the Festival. With six Italian films in competition this year, I already had my concerns. Cavani’s latest creation managed to score remarkably poorly on the very first day of screenings.
I'm at a loss for words to express my sadness at witnessing a female director receive a career Golden Lion while presenting a movie of such poor quality. Based on the writings of scientist Carlo Rovelli, L’ordine del tempo follows a day and night in a villa by the sea where a group of friends spend the last days of their holidays. A meteorite is approaching Earth, and there is an alarming chance that it could collide with the planet, potentially leading humanity to the same fate as the dinosaurs.
After just an hour into the movie, the majority of the audience will secretly be rooting for the meteorite. The moments of confession and truth-telling, combined with the exploration of the hypothetical proximity to collective death, seem tailor-made for internet memes. One particularly excruciating scene involves a finance guru confronting his wife before departing from the villa and subsequently veering entirely off-script. The movie appears uninterested in his fate. He faces the camera (for no apparent reason) and his wife who has been in love with another man for a very long time. He then exclaims in a high-pitched, hammy manner, "My heart is so small. It's like a tiny mouse." This line, which everyone in the audience ridiculed, became a talking point right after the screening.
However, the most distressing aspect was an overtly superficial scene in which the two female characters bluntly and superficially declare that Nazism was undeniably, irreversibly atrocious. How could the director of The Night Porter fail to recognize the performative nature of this scene? Here, we have a group of affluent individuals facing imminent death while enlisting the aid of a less privileged Peruvian maid to mix cocktails and cook, disregarding her desire to abandon everything and catch a flight to see her son one last time. Astonishingly, there is no implied criticism here.
more tomorrow...
Reader Comments (1)
Oh man, a bust from Cavani. Damn.