‘Comandante Review: Visceral Italian Naval Drama Wrecked By Its Own Worthiness

The versatile Italian star Pierfrancesco Favino ( "Traitor" , "Nostalgia ") does very impressive things in this story of a World War Two submarine commander . He's wearing a back brace that looks painful. He spoke with a reassuring Venetian accent. He does yoga. He barked orders at his weary crew, including telling them all to eat gnocchi. Finally he injected heroin. But most of all, he bravely and bravely saved two dozen Belgian sailors from drowning at sea, making his character Salvatore Todaro a true war hero.

This last bit is heard loud and clear again and again in director Edoardo De Angelis' passionate tribute to a man who defied fascist orders and turned to his comrades, even as they supplied the Allies with weapons. Why he did it is apparently no less important than the fact that this is a beautifully crafted, albeit very intentional, naval drama that he had just created, and more importantly, that it is an Italian play.

That's not to say Comandante - which opened the ^80th Venice Film Festival after Luca Guadagnino's tennis romance Challengers was canceled due to the Hollywood strike - is a patriotic period drama or a macho war film, even if it is a "war movie" of sorts. . both The message De Angeles delivered to his nation (the film is unlikely to be released internationally) is one of universal humanity, especially at a time when African migrants are tragically drowning on Italian beaches.

So it's a welcome message, but it's often exaggerated. As soon as the commander opened his mouth, Favino's sentences seemed to have been written by a political expert. The film is far better if we see Todaro and his crew hard at work, either shooting down an enemy plane or taking out a few fugitives, on their way to the Atlantic in October 1940 and launching a deadly mine-laden fleet across the Cross. Gibraltar Strait

De Angelis, whose previous film (" Indivisible" , "The Vice of Hope ") was a bit of a drama set in his native Naples, shows that he has the best for this film's strongest locations, including the gunfights that take place at night. in the rocky sea. Bombs explode before our eyes and waves drive us crazy. Men were mutilated and brutally killed.

The Comandante had an offer of €15 million (over $16 million), but appeared to be over budget. A full-scale reconstruction of designer Carmine Gurino's original Cappellini submarine became the focus of admiration, and the VFX team ensured some unforgettable details, such as floating jellyfish as torpedoes exploded above and the water caught fire.

Apart from the con artist Favino, several other actors managed to give a nice touch to his character. Giuseppe Brunetti plays friendly chef Gigino, of Neapolitan origin, who speaks a dialect and knows how to cook any Italian dish imaginable, even if his supply runs out and he can only imagine. The scene in which Belgian sailors teach him how to cook their national dish, French fries, was sweet and moving and received applause at a press screening in Venice.

Yet other things in Comandante seem too obvious or symbolically exaggerated, starting with the introduction where Todaro, after jumping out of a plane during training, with a bad back injury, is barred from doing so with his beautiful wife in the Livorno navy. base. Rina must be prevented from doing that. . (Silvia D'Amico). Key words: Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rustica: Intermezzo Sinfónico" - Scorsese's song used especially for the opening of Raging Bull - the clip shows Rina standing bare-chested and wearing a captain's hat.

Then, when the commander received an assignment to sail treacherous waters a year after World War II began, he gave his crew an impassioned first speech. “We are Italians and we are alone,” he told them, doing his best to separate his troops from his Nazi allies. This attitude proves to be his main weapon when the submarine sinks the Belgian cargo ship and Todaro decides to save his crew - although his lookalike loyal partner Ahab (Vittorio Marcon) prefers to go down.

When Todaro talks to the captain of a Flemish freighter (Johan Heldenbergh The Broken Circle Breakdown ) near the end, he once again reminds us that he did the good and the brave thing because he is Italian. It boils over at this point, proving that while De Angelis knows how to create soulful moments of action and intensity, he hasn't shown a shred of subtlety. His message is once again laudable, especially at a time when Italy's far-right government is pushing a massive anti-immigration agenda. Not that Comandante has to be shouted from rooftops or hundreds of feet underwater, and the result is an ocean movie worth seeing.