:
Valerio Zurlini
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: NoShame Films
: 141 min.
: English, Italian
: English
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BEAU GESTE meets WAITING FOR GODOT in this haunting adaptation of renowned Italian writer Dino Buzzati's controversial 1938 novel about life, honor, mystery, paranoia and death during wartime. For his first commission, infantry lieutenant Drogo (Jacques Perrin) is stationed at a remote desert garrison on the mist-shrouded border of the North Kingdom. Filling their days with endless drilling, the soldiers of Fortezza Bastiani spend the long nights wondering about an enemy no one has ever seen. As the days stretch into months, the strain of waiting for attack takes its toll on Drago's comrades: sadistic Major Mattis (Giuliano Gemma), sardonic Lieutenant Simeon (Helmut Griem), cynical medic Rovine (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and humiliated Captain Hortiz (Max von Sydow).
Rarely screened outside Europe since its 1976 premiere, Il Deserto dei Tartari (DESERT OF THE TARTARS) was the last film from Italian director Valerio Zurlini before his death in 1982 and also features legendary actors Vittorio Gassman, Philippe Noiret, Fernando Rey, and Francisco Rabal.
A multi-national co-production, DESERT OF THE TARTARS makes atmospheric use of Iranā¬"s 2000 year-old Bam Citadel, where Zurlini filmed on the eve of the 1979 revolution that changed world politics forever. As timely now as the day it was made, DESERT OF THE TARTARS is a study of the madness of warfare in the tradition of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and APOCALYPSE NOW.
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| Desert Rats
by talltale
September 20, 2006 - 12:27 PM PDT
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0 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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Merely to watch the opening credits for DESERT OF THE TARTARS should leave most movie buffs creaming their corduroys. In addition to wonderful architecture and street scenes, you'll note the listing of 10--count 'em, ten!--of the most magical actors of European cinema past and present: from France, Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Jean-Louis Trintingant and Laurent Terzieff; from Spain, Fernando Rey and Francisco Rabal; from Germany Helmut Griem; from Italy, Vittorio Gassman and Giuliano Gemma; and from Sweden, Bergman rep man gone international star Max von Sydow. Ennio Morricone provides the music and the direction is served up by Valerio Zurlini.
If the last name rings no bells, it may be due to this particular filmmaker's unfamiliarity (perhaps deservedly so) to Americans. The only two films of his I had seen--"Family Diary" and "Girl with a Suitcase"--came and went back in the early 60s with little ado. Now that this one has finally appeared on video--in a fine, if tad grainy, DVD transfer from No Shame--we have a chance to see another of Zurlini's 20-movie output (he died at the age of 56).
Stately, beautiful and full of stunning locales, "Desert" is finally dry and tiring. Dealing with the lives of the officers in an Italian military regiment posted to a far-off locale, despite the nearly 2-1/2-hour running time, we learn little about any of these men. Perhaps they exist as symbols; they sure don't make it as full-bodied characters. Oddly, it's mainstream hunk Gemma who comes off best as the cruel, lower-class officer who couldn't, as the Gassman character reminds us, begin to understand anyone as high class as another, now-dead officer (this movie is class-conscious to the core).
If the details of the story made better sense, we might not keep asking ourselves what the hell the film is all about--possibly the perils of, well, something or other: empire, military regimentation, willful ignorance, desert mirages or giving in to the "Camille" syndrome: there are a couple of first-rate coughers on view). A friend of mine says "Desert" delves humanity's necessity to wage war. That may be, but since the enemy as shown is probably more imagined than real, does this theory hold? (I'd suggest watching the recent documentary "Why We Fight" for an update on this important subject.) As for these "tartars," a viewing is in order if only for the opportunity to gaze at gorgeous scenery, watch this interesting compilation of actors at work, and hear one of Morricone's subtler scores. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.64)
14 Votes
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