A Commanderof Edward de Angelis, what happens to Peter Sellers in The guateque. He’s gone from fired as a jerk to king of the party in the time it takes to color a baby elephant. Which, regardless of the alcohol in the blood, shouldn’t be much. It is not clear that the comparison is fair, but it is worth the same. Until a few weeks ago when there were no actors on strike, the 80th edition of the Mostra was going to open with rivalsthe movie of Luca Guadagnino con Zendaya on paper something more than just stellar. Everything matched up: director of the house at the press conference, actress of the moment on the red carpet and no more making a fool of herself from the previous year when Netflix’s dominance was so evident that even the opening was hers with Background noiseby Noah Baumbach.
Well, the elephant in the room that is the unemployment of interpreters and screenwriters made the production company Warner think about whether it made sense that a film whose reason for sale and even pride is the protagonist and she did not appear anywhere. The answer was no, the tape was delayed until April 2024 and Venice stared at the line. I imagine that the platform with the capital N would be asked if they had anything left and the chain, out of modesty, responded with “Stop hurting yourself.” And in these that Edoardo de Angelis raised his hand. And in these, Commander.
Commander It is one of those movies that are no longer made and therefore not seen. What is not necessarily bad. If anything, weird. The story is told of an Italian submarine that, in the middle of World War II, instead of doing what someone enrolled in the Navy in the middle of a global conflict is asked to kill a lot, chooses to rescue the survivors of precisely one of his attacks. And he does it not so much out of pacifism, which is a bit, but out of italianity. When the commander of the title is asked why he has acted as he has done, his answer is resounding: “Because we are Italian”. The rescued are Belgian and, as their boss admits, they would not have done it. Long live the European Union.
Beyond the somewhat rancid patriotism and not to mention that in the entire film there is barely a reference (and to excuse it) to the fact that the ship is on the wrong side; beyond the fact that fascism is treated as a natural accident next to a storm or a period of drought; beyond several others that have to do with the completely ridiculous role that the few women who appear to fire their husbands receive (also they do it naked in the bedroom in an exhibition preMetoo scary); beyond, we said, of the beyond, is the more here. And that earthly one here has to do with the rules of the war genre that De Angelis honors so as fastidious and precise as, let’s face it, inane. Let’s say that correction is both the greatest virtue and the most obvious condemnation of Commander.
It is true that the protagonist played by Pierfrancesco Favino gives the perfect measure of the hero vintage rough on the outside and tender on the inside in equal parts; aware of his destiny and oblivious to the distant possibility of redeeming himself. Or save yourself. He, like good idols, is there to immolate himself, to rise from the ashes transformed into a legend. If I bore you, don’t blame me. That is the tone, that of the vocationally enchanted (or just plagiarized) cinema of classic cinema.