Brancaleone on a crusade to the Holy Land
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Brancaleone on a crusade to the Holy Land |
| Original title | Brancaleone all crociate |
| Country of production | Italy , Algeria |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 1970 |
| length | 115 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mario Monicelli |
| script |
Agenore Incrocci Furio Scarpelli Mario Monicelli |
| production | Mario Cecchi Gori |
| music | Carlo Rustichelli |
| camera | Aldo Tonti |
| cut | Ruggero Mastroianni |
| occupation | |
| |
Brancaleone on Crusade to the Holy Land (original title: Brancaleone alle crociate ) is a Commedia all'italiana from 1970. With it, director Mario Monicelli continued his hit film The Unbelievable Adventures of the Honorable Knight Branca Leone (1966).
action
In medieval Italy, the knight Brancaleone gathered Christians around him to go on the crusade together. You reach a bank, cross over and believe you have crossed the ocean; but the water turns out to be a small lake. Undeterred, they move on.
The supporters of a new pope, who has now been elected, butchered most of Brancaleone's troops as false believers. He himself happened to survive because of his foolishness. With the few remaining, he set off on a journey to the Holy Land to support the king there. On the way, he prevents a dishonest German warrior from drowning a baby in a basket. The child is the son of the king, who commissioned the murder by his brother Turon, who wanted to overthrow the brother and eliminate the heir. The German joins Brancaleone's troop as well as Tiburzia, who wants to burn a village as a witch, and a leper whose face cannot be seen. You get involved in factional battles between Pope and Antipope. The leper saves Brancaleone from drowning and turns out to be the widowed, attractive noblewoman Berta d'Avignon, who wanted to protect herself from constant rape with the disguise. Her appearance arouses Tiburzia's jealousy. In Jerusalem the king accepts his son and Tiburzia has to prove that she is indeed a witch. The military situation is deadlocked. The King of the Moors proposes a five-on-five fight: the victor should decide the life and death of the loser. At the last second, Brancaleone is on the verge of winning the fight when Tiburzia drops a coconut on him with witchcraft power, out of jealousy about his plans to marry Berta. The Christians are killed, and Brancaleone only escapes because Tiburzia sacrifices himself for him.
To the work
The film-dienst praised: "Although the whole thing seems to be less demanding: the presentation and some sequences are exemplary." The artistic value becomes visible "especially in the design of comical situations". Positif rejected judgments about the second Brancaleone flick, which were voiced at the San Sebastian Festival, saying that it had lost momentum compared to the first part and that its exaltation was more moderate. Rather, the astonishing film of its predecessor is by no means unworthy. He belongs to many genres and the main character has an extensive family tree, from the Pantalone of the Italian farce to Don Quixote to Captain Fracasse . From a frenzied anti-clericalism, the story commits itself entirely to fantasy and occasionally turns into a lament.
Web links
- Brancaleone on crusade to the Holy Land in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The film at comingsoon.it
Individual evidence
- ^ Corrado Marucci: Brancaleone on a crusade to the Holy Land . In: film-dienst No. 2/1973.
- ^ Jean-Paul Török: Le martyre de San Sebastian . In: Positif , January 1972, pp. 33-34