The silent mountain

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Movie
German title The silent mountain
Original title The Silent Mountain
Country of production Austria ,
Italy ,
United States
original language English ,
German ,
Italian
Publishing year 2014
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 14
Rod
Director Ernst Gossner
script Clemens Aufderklamm
production Heinz Stussak
Ernst Gossner
music Gregor Narholz
camera Daniela Knapp
cut Janine Dauterich
Florian Miosge
Evi Romen
occupation

The Silent Mountain is an Austrian-Italian-American film drama from 2014 . Shot on locations in Tyrol and South Tyrol , the film tells a love story at the beginning of the First World War .

The film opened in Austrian cinemas on March 14, 2014. The DVD was only released a year later. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc under the title Murderous Front - War in the Dolomites .

action

Tyrol, in 1915: Anderl Gruber grew up in a wealthy family as the son of a hotelier. Like many Tyroleans , the Gruber family has a certain aversion to the Walschen , the Italians of South Tyrol . Nevertheless, the wedding between Anderl's sister Elisabeth and the engineer Angelo Calzolari takes place. Anderl's father Karl would like to have a cable car built in the valley and thus hopes for economic support from the somewhat wealthier Calzolari family. Karl Gruber rejected the suggestion of the teacher Fritz Weinberger to marry Elisabeth.

At the wedding, Anderl meets the convent student Francesca, Angelo's sister. Her mother Nuria would like to have her brought back to the monastery after the party; but Francesca wants to live her own life apart from strictly conservative norms. Anderl falls in love with Francesca. Immediately afterwards the message reaches the hotel that Italy has declared war on Austria-Hungary . The Gruber and Calzolari families are torn apart; the Calzolaris leave for Trento . Anderl succeeds in hiding Francesca in the basement of the hotel and spends one last night together with her before he too moves to the mountains the next day - he slept the vow to his fatherland in Francesca's arms - for the war.

Anderl sees the first days as a soldier as an adventure. Only when his first friends and comrades were killed by the whales, and he too had to shoot an Italian spy one night , did he realize the effects of the war. Angelo, his brother-in-law, goes to war on the side of the Italians and is indoctrinated by the propaganda to regard the Austrians as enemies and to deal with them accordingly. He too must gradually realize that the war is madness. In a firefight, his commander Nicola Quinziato had compatriots who back down or who refused to shoot Austrians executed . Only engineer Angelo is spared, as Quinziato initially intends to dig an underground tunnel to Tyrol. When the venture is abandoned due to impossibility, Quinziato intends to blow up the mountain with hundreds of tons of explosives in order to kill the Austrians on it. These have since received support from a regiment of the German Alpine Corps under the leadership of Sven Kornatz.

The teacher Weinberger, who went to the mountains with Anderl's team, injured his leg one day and was brought back to the hotel, which now functions as a hospital . The hotel itself was damaged in a gun battle. Anderl's sister Elisabeth and her mother Anna discovered Francesca and took them in. She is passed off as a Hungarian and helps the family as a nurse in looking after the wounded. One day Anderl was one of them, who was injured in the shoulder in a battle. He is being nursed back to health by Francesca. One night he sees Francesca leaving the hotel. He follows her to the teacher's house. Weinberger knows that Francesca is Italian. He coerces Francesca into sexual favors, otherwise he will betray her to the Austrians. Anderl is disappointed. In his madness he runs into the mountains. Here he is seized with hatred of the Italians; he takes an artillery piece and in his anger mows down a handful of whales charging at him. From a flash he is hit found by his father and the other soldiers and taken to the military camp. The boy only gradually recovers from his physical and mental scars.

One day Angelo deserted . He reaches Anderl's troop camp and reports on the Italians' plan to blow up the mountain. Since Angelo is wounded in the leg, Anderl is given the task of taking his brother-in-law to the valley disguised as a prisoner of war . The two split up shortly before the hotel. Anderl has forgiven Francesca and wants to get her first before he escapes with her and Angelo. But it turns out differently. Angelo, who has put on the uniform of a dead Austrian, is exposed and arrested by Weinberger. From a distance he can see his wife Elisabeth and their son. Weinberger has Angelo executed shortly afterwards.

Anderl and Francesca flee to the mountains. Weinberger pursues them. A brief scuffle ensues. Just before Weinberger can kill Anderl, Francesca grabs a stone and uses it to kill her tormentor. Shortly afterwards, they see the Italians put their plan into action and detonate hundreds of tons of explosives on the mountain. The troop of Austrians and Germans, including Anderl's father, are killed. Anderl and Francesca still manage to escape the avalanche of rubble and stone that is rolling into the valley.

From the off , Anderl tells that he and Francesca then walked away from this war as much as possible. He often thinks back to the mountain, to a mountain without soldiers - to a quiet mountain.

Background information

The plot of the film reconstructs the so-called First Dolomite Offensive from July to August 1915, a section of the mountain war 1915–1918 . The shooting took place in the summer of 2012 in Tyrol and South Tyrol, among others on the Mendel Pass , on Lake Braies and in the "stone town" of the Sassolungo Group . The world premiere was in March 2014 in Bolzano .

Trivia

  • In the German version, the actors speak their dialects and languages. The Italians speak Italian and are subtitled . William Moseley's voice actor is the German Konrad Bösherz .
  • William Moseley injured himself on set and had to spend the last few scenes in a wheelchair.
  • The " Smoking Sergeant " is seen several times as an extra , a character from several war films from the 1960s to 1990s, who - always acting in the background - is considered an integral part of films about the First and Second World War (e.g. in The Longest Day , Die Arnhem Bridge or The Blue Max ). The origin of the character is controversial in the literature, it is mostly assumed that it was a real sergeant in the German army who was repeatedly used as an extra in German and international war films after the Second World War. His trademarks are a twisted mustache and a burning Virginia cigar .
  • The camerawoman was moderately severe in a lightning strike on the Valparola Pass in summer 2012, several crew members and actors were slightly injured.

Videos

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for Murderous Front - War in the Dolomites . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2015 (PDF; test number: 152 083 V).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Der stille Berg . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ “Big Cinema”: Claudia Cardinale is shooting “The Silent Mountain” in South Tyrol ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Südtirol Online , June 15, 2012
  4. ↑ In the barrage of cannons: "The silent mountain" ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Südtirol Online , March 8, 2014
  5. ↑ Film crew struck by lightning. Südtirol Online, July 15, 2012, archived from the original on July 19, 2012 ; Retrieved April 11, 2014 .