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Mediterraneo

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For other uses, seeMediterraneo (disambiguation).

Mediterraneo
Original release poster
Directed byGabriele Salvatores
Written byEnzo Monteleone
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyItalo Petriccione
Edited byNino Baragli
Music by
Distributed byVariety Distribution
Release date
  • 31 January 1991(1991-01-31)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryItaly
Languages
  • Italian
  • English
  • Greek
Box office$4.5 million[1]

Mediterraneois a 1991 Italianwarcomedy-dramafilm directed byGabriele Salvatoresand written byEnzo Monteleone.The film is set duringWorld War IIand concerns a group of Italian soldiers who become stranded on an island of theItalian Dodecanesein theAegean Sea,and are left behind by the war. It won theAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Filmin 1992.[2]

Plot[edit]

In 1941, one year afterItalyjoinedGermanyagainst the Allies inWorld War II,a small group of misfit Italian soldiers is sent toMegísti,a small Greek island in theAegean Sea,for four months of lookout duty. The soldiers include a lieutenant who likes art, a macho sergeant, a ski instructor accompanied by his beloved donkey Silvana, and other quirky people. They are not very good soldiers, but a cross section of average, independent men, who like the Greeks (and the occasional visiting Turk), are Mediterraneans, who greatly resemble the locals in appearance and culture—a catchphrase "One face, one race" occurs throughout the film.

The soldiers anticipate attack from outside and on the island, and take all sorts of inept precautions. They find a small town with no people. That night, they see bombing on the horizon and by radio interception, discover that the ship that was intended to pick them up has been destroyed. Mysteriously, people reappear in the village: the villagers say they hid because the Germans had taken all the men, but having seen that the Italians are absolutely harmless they have decided to return to their lives. It's not long before everyone's sunny nature appears. The Italian soldiers, unacquainted with a war they clearly do not sense as theirs, are absorbed into the life, heat and landscape of the idyllic island.

The localorthodoxpriest asks the lieutenant, an amateur painter, to restore the murals in his church. Two soldiers, who are brothers, befriend a lovely young woman, a shepherdess. They eventually consummate their friendship with the shepherdess who in turn loves them both equally. Sergeant Lo Russo, the only member of the crew with a fiery spirit for war, takes up folk dancing and begins to reflect on his place in the universe. Meanwhile, the shyest soldier, Farina, falls in love with the island's prostitute, named Vasilissa[note 1].

In their old age, three of the men are reunited on the island.[3]

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

The film's producers arePenta Film[it],A.M.A. Film,Silvio Berlusconi CommunicationsandCecchi Gori Group Tiger Cinematografica[it].

The script was written byEnzo Monteleoneand is loosely based on the autobiographical novelSagapòbyRenzo Biasion.The script and the novel show marked differences in how they portray the Italian army in Greece, with the novel giving a more realistic account.[4]

Filming took place on the Greek island ofKastellórizo,in theDodecaneseisland complex.

Release[edit]

Mediterraneowas released in Italy on 31 January 1991 byPenta Distribuzionebefore premiering at the1991 Toronto International Film Festivalon 9 September 1991, where its North American distribution rights were purchased byMiramax Films.Internationally, the film was truncated by 10 minutes, resulting in an 86-minute cut.

The film was submitted as theItalian entryfor theAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Filmin November 1991.[5]It was released in the United States in March 1992, a week before the Academy Awards[1]and made its worldwide run over the next two years.

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

The film grossed $4.5 million in the United States and Canada,[1]and was the highest-grossing non-English language film at the US box office that year[6]but was later surpassed byIndochinewhich was released at Christmas 1992 and grossed most of its revenue in 1993.[7]

Critical response[edit]

Mediterraneowas received mostly positively by film critics. On thereview aggregatorwebsiteRotten Tomatoes,the film has an 80% score, based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10.[8]

Several critics linked the movie to the tradition ofItalian neorealism.Nevertheless, the victory of the Academy Award raised some eyebrows, withThe Washington Postdescribing the movie as a "schmaltzy island fantasy", and theFilm Journalcalling it a "clichéd number".[9]Roger Ebertclaimed that this was the only film he ever walked out of because it was "utterly without redeeming merit".[10]However, he previously wrote that he had walked out of films likeJonathan Livingston Seagull[11]andCaligula.[12]

Among historians the movie was discussed as a prime example of the myth ofItaliani brava gente,the popular Italian belief that Italian soldiers were not complicit inwar crimesand had distinguished themselves through humanity and compassion during World War II — in stark contrast to their ideologically motivated and brutal German allies. The movie fails to give any reference to the atrocities committed by Italians during theAxis occupation of Greece,while portrayingRoyal Italian Armysoldiers as essentially good-natured people, if not, innocent buffoons. In reality the burning of villages, the shooting of civilians and rapes were common features of the Italian occupation. However, the film goes so far as to show Italian aggressors happily mingling with the locals and even establishing consensual erotic relationships with Greek women.[13][14][15]

Awards[edit]

It won theAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Filmin 1992.[2]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^Vasilissais the Greek word forqueen.

References[edit]

  1. ^abc"Mediterraneo (1992)".Box Office Mojo.
  2. ^ab"The 64th Academy Awards (1992) Nominees and Winners".oscars.org.9 October 2014.Retrieved15 September2015.
  3. ^Mediterraneo (1991). March 22, 1992. Review/Film Festival; Roundelay Of Love On an Isle In Wartime
  4. ^Saverio Giovacchini,Soccer with the Dead: Mediterraneo and the Myth of Italiani Brava Gente,in Repicturing the Second World War, ed. Michael Paris (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 55-69, here p. 61
  5. ^"Spain, Italy Name Oscar Submissions".Variety.10 November 1991. Archived fromthe originalon 12 October 2019.Retrieved12 October2019.
  6. ^Cohn, Lawrence (12 January 1993)."'Mediterraneo' Top Foreign-language Film of 1992 ".Variety.Retrieved12 October2019.
  7. ^"Foreign Language".Box Office Mojo.Retrieved12 October2019.
  8. ^"Mediterraneo".Rotten Tomatoes.
  9. ^Saverio Giovacchini,Soccer with the Dead: Mediterraneo and the Myth of Italiani Brava Gente,in Repicturing the Second World War, ed. Michael Paris (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 55-69
  10. ^Watson, Bret (17 May 1996)."Siskel and Ebert answer 10 Stupid Questions".Entertainment Weekly.Retrieved1 July2017.
  11. ^Ebert, Roger (8 November 1973)."Jonathan Livingston Seagull".RogerEbert.com.Retrieved12 June2023.
  12. ^Ebert, Roger (22 September 1980)."Caligula".RogerEbert.com.Retrieved12 June2023.
  13. ^Saverio Giovacchini,Soccer with the Dead: Mediterraneo and the Myth of Italiani Brava Gentein Repicturing the Second World War, ed. Michael Paris (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 55-69
  14. ^Filippo Focardi,Il cattivo tedesco e il bravo italiano. La rimozione delle colpe della seconda guerra mondiale,Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2013
  15. ^Paolo Favero,Blessed be the Good Soldier: Cinema, Media and the Manufacturing of Nationhood in Post 9/11 Italyin Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo, XII/XIII (2011), no. 13 (1), p. 55-66

External links[edit]

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