Battalion of the Lost
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Battalion of the Lost |
| Original title | Uomini contro |
| Country of production | Italy , Yugoslavia |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 1970 |
| length | 97 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Francesco Rosi |
| script |
Tonino Guerra Raffaele La Capria Emilio Lussu Francesco Rosi |
| production |
Marina Cicogna Luciano Perugia Francesco Rosi |
| music | Piero Piccioni |
| camera | Pasqualino De Santis |
| cut | Ruggero Mastroianni |
| occupation | |
| |
Battalion of the Lost, Uomini contro in Italian , is an anti-war film set on the Austro-Italian mountain front at the time of the First World War in 1916 . The film shows what is happening on the Italian side. The director and author Francesco Rosi is known for his socially critical films.
action
During the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian troops defend themselves on the Alpine front against the attacking Italians, led by General Leone. The Austrians have holed up almost impregnable on the almost 2000 meter high Monte Fior . Under constant machine gun fire , General Leone relentlessly drives his soldiers forward in order to conquer the position of the enemy.
Lieutenant Sassu's battalion joined the general's division. He is one of those patriots who volunteered for the front, and now he not only gets to know the war in all its cruelty, but also the power-mad general. When one of Sassu's soldiers does not carry out an order as the general had ordered, he is to be executed for it. But since the soldier cannot really be blamed for anything and he is not directly to blame, the order seems to Sassu senseless and cruel. In this way he saves the man's life and fakes a shooting. Since there are enough dead soldiers from the last battle, Sassu simply presents one to the general as the execution victim.
General Leone is determined to retake Monte Fior and sacrifices thousands of soldiers for it. For him, the mountain top is of great strategic importance, which is why he does everything in his power to take the fortress, even if this amounts to a suicide squad. But as hard as he tries, he will not succeed. All he has to do is to oppose the enemy's artillery with his infantry, which makes the fight hopeless. Some of the soldiers begin to rebel and throw their rifles into the fire. The idealist Sassu is on their side, but also demands prudence from them. However, he cannot prevent the leading mutineers from being shot.
In a renewed attack against the Austrians, General Leone tries to protect the soldiers in the front with metal armor. But the men are only protected for a short time. They and those behind them inevitably fall from the constant fire from the machine guns of the enemy. Sassu, who cannot do anything to prevent his soldiers from being slaughtered, has more and more doubts about the competence of his superior. To put an end to the whole thing, he tries to lure the general into a trap, but it fails.
Gradually winter sets in and cold and snow determine the Austro-Italian mountain front. Most of the soldiers are completely demoralized. Even before the long-awaited reinforcement with artillery pieces arrives, the Austrians attacked heavily. The Italians can only retreat to their shelters and hope to be spared.
In another mutiny, Lieutenant Sassu tries to save soldiers from senseless death and refuses the order of his superior Major Malchiodi to shoot selected men. In the commotion that followed, the major was killed by a soldier. For this lack of discipline on the part of his battalion and the support of the mutineers, Sassu must answer to General Leone, who then has him executed.
analysis
Following a Marxist scheme (the film was made in 1970 during the Vietnam War and shortly after “ 1968 ”) the generals represent the ruling class; the common soldiers are, so to speak, the lower class, while the officers form the intellectual middle class, who at first follow the generals with conviction, then see the truth about the war and want to lead the soldiers against their generals in order to put an end to the madness. However, this is easier said than done because, as Karl Marx observed, the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas. In the end, the generals have everything under control again, a bloody criminal court is held against the soldiers, the left-wing officers come to a court martial a little more elegant and are shot dead.
One can criticize the film about the Kautskyan revolutionary scheme, according to which ordinary people are incapable of changing circumstances, but need intellectuals to enlighten them. In the film, however, the middle-class officers fail miserably; they have no chance against the cunning generals. It is also noteworthy that the generals also show a brazen courage in defense of their power. In a key scene, a general emerges from the trench, the enemy bullets whistle without hitting him. After a short while he climbs back into the trenches and asks: “Which soldier wants to follow the brave example of his general?” A young soldier answers. The officers talk to him in vain: "The Austrian snipers have now corrected, your life is in danger!" In fact, the soldier was fatally hit after a short time. According to the ancient custom, his comrades stick a coin between the dying man's teeth so that he can pay for the crossing over the river Styx .
Furthermore, the pointlessness of a frontal attack against machine guns is shown; some Italian soldiers are outfitted with Brewster armor - which the general notes look like Roman legionnaires - and are mowed down when attacked.
Even when the soldiers finally mutinied and killed some high-ranking officers, the general "courageously" stood in front of the men, gave a speech with false promises and lies and was thus able to save the situation for those in power. The uprising has failed, the criminal judgment, the decimation, begins.
Overall, it is not one of those so-called anti-war films that ultimately succumb to the fascination of war. Criticism of the war is combined with social criticism and political criticism, thus countering the risk of only making one more exciting adventure film.
Literary basis
The film is based on the novel by Emilio Lussu Un anno sull'Altipiano (Eng. "A year on the plateau"), which was first published in 1938 in exile in Paris. In addition to similarities (e.g. attack by armored soldiers), there are also clear differences between the literary basis and the film, which reinforce the political message of the film. In the movie, for example,
- the general does not stand outside the trench, but in the trench on a pad in order to be able to observe better. The soldier who copied is not killed, but wounded by a shot in the chest and survived. As a result, the soldier is not given a coin between his teeth, but rather the general gives him a silver lira to reward his bravery.
- Likewise, the mutinous soldiers do not kill high officers,
- the decimation is not ordered by the generals, but by the major and battalion commander, who has become insane by the artillery bombardment, ad hoc for a trivial reason and thus illegally. Weeks earlier, the same major had wanted to punish mutinous companies in his battalion in the same way and had formally applied to his superiors to do so through official channels, but had been forbidden to do so.
- Furthermore, there is no decimation. The firing squad fired over the heads of the condemned. The insane major then begins to execute soldiers himself with his pistol. After he has already killed three men, the firing squad shoots him in self-defense.
criticism
The lexicon of the international film evaluated: The film offers “No spectacular battle painting, rather - based on an authentic episode from the First World War - a sharp and partisan analysis of the military hierarchy as a mirror of social power relations, combined with the call for solidarity of the soldiers against the inhumanity of the Leader. Rosi's first and only large-scale production, which nevertheless has an almost intimate character in its consistent moral attitude. "
Cinema.de judged: "Francesco Rosi's epic about trench warfare in the Dolomites contains battle scenes that would impress even a Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan) ."
literature
- Emilio Lussu : A year on the plateau . Vienna 2006. (Original title: Un anno sull'Altipiano. Paris 1938.)
Web links
- Many Wars Ago in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Battalion of the Lost Content and Assessment
Individual evidence
- ↑ Compare Lusso (2006), p. 52 ff.
- ↑ Compare Lusso (2006), p. 212.
- ↑ Compare Lussu (2006), p. 213 f.
- ↑ Battalion of the Lost. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Battalion of the Lost at cinema.de, accessed 2018.