The way back (film)

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Movie
German title The way back
Original title Tutti a casa
Country of production Italy , France
original language Italian
Publishing year 1960
length 117 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Luigi Comencini
script Age
Scarpelli
Luigi Comencini
Marcello Fondato
production Dino de Laurentiis
music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
camera Carlo Carlini
cut Nino Baragli
occupation

The way back (original title: Tutti a casa ) is an Italian-French film satire that Luigi Comencini directed in 1960. The elaborate production is one of the films of the Commedia all'italiana .

action

The film starts in 1943 on the Mediterranean coast, where the Americans are expected to land soon. Following Pietro Badoglio's radio address on September 8, announcing the armistice with the Allies (see Armistice of Cassibile ), soldiers and officers of an Italian garrison consider the war to be over. At the moment the German troops regard their previous allies as enemies, shoot them at and take them prisoner. Lieutenant Innocenzi and his platoon, who are on their way to a changing of the guard, have not noticed anything. Attacked by the Germans, they flee. Civilian Ceccarelli, who has a stomach ulcer and is on his way to his home in Naples , joins them.

After Innocenzi lets his men get into two confiscated trucks, he loses half of them, which made off with the second truck. After the march through a dark railway tunnel, the other half has moved away from him - only Ceccarelli is still there and sticks to him like a burdock. They find shelter with peasants, where a captain has already exchanged his uniform for civilian clothes; Innocenzi does the same. Two more fugitives arrive, Fornaciari and the youth Codegato. The group encounters armed partisans whom Innocenzi does not want to join. At night Innocenzi catches the other two men trying to nibble on groceries from Ceccarelli's suitcase, plays himself out, but eats with them. Numerous civilians and also deserted Italian soldiers are on the road, trying to make their way south. Among them is the Jewess Silvia, whose whole family was killed and with whom Codegato falls in love. Irrespective of the rest of the group, Innocenzi uses an opportunity to drive further than the miller Brisigoni needs as a driver. After their car breaks down, they catch up with him and are very upset because they looked for him with concern. The group's onward journey in a bus is stopped by two German soldiers who are looking for Silvia as a Jew. Codegato helps her escape and is shot. When they arrive at Fornaciari's family, Innocenzi and Ceccarelli make a stopover. As it turns out, Fornaciari's wife is hiding the American tobacco. You can just escape before the fascists lead the American and Fornaciari away. Arriving at Innocenzi's father, the joy quickly evaporates because the father wants to put his son back with the fascist troops through his lodger, a major. Innocenzi and Ceccarelli run away. In Naples, where the uprising against the German occupation is beginning these days (see Four Days of Naples ), they are taken prisoner by the Germans. They are forced to clear away rubble. After successfully escaping through a church, Innocenzi arrives in the church tower. Soon Ceccarelli also tries to escape and is badly shot. Innocenzi leaves his cover and rushes in great danger to Ceccarelli, who dies in his arms. He assists the partisans who are clumsily trying to set up a machine gun in his vicinity and takes an order from a partisan leader. The film ends with it shooting at the advancing German troops.

To the work

The film service ruled that the work had "the atmosphere of a neorealistic homecoming comedy", often amusing, later tragic. “A weekly review of the war landscape and the sober observation photography complete the appearance of a chronicle. But against this background the alternation of comic, dramatic and pathetic elements is not convincing enough. ”Comencini does not succeed in uniting these elements in an overarching style, but the details of the film are captivating.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ film-dienst , No. 46/1961.