Eumenides_0 The Italians don't have a problem making fun of serious things. Roberto Benigni got the whole world laughing with a Holocaust movie. Lina Wertmüller satirized man's will to survive in her WWII dark comedy, Pasqualino Settebelezze. Mario Monicelli's La Grande Guerra, perhaps the grandfather of such movies, aims its satire at World War I.The movie follows Giovanni Busacca and Oreste Jacovacci, two comical anti-heroes who are drafted and spend most of the time trying to find ways to stay out of the front or acquire some rare comforts amidst the war. The movie is mostly plot less and instead emphasizes amusing episodic situations. This gives the movie maximum freedom to explore as many situations as the imagination of the screenwriters allowed.However this movie never stoops to frivolity. Amidst the horrors of war, there's a strong criticism of war in general and also of the way the soldiers are treated by their own country. Monicelli's camera shows the squalor of the trenches, the hunger, the worn boots and uniforms. The battles are bloody, chaotic situations; when it shows Giovanni and Oreste watching a bombardment in the distance, we share with them the relief we're somewhere else. We rejoice when they think their way out of a dangerous situation and commiserate with them over fallen friends.And like the best war movies, La Grande Guerra manages to show the best of mankind. Comradeship, selflessness, courage, loyalty are in display here.La Grande Guerra is over 50 years and yet remains an impressive experience. Modern movies can be technically more authentic, have better sfx, better make-up, have better sound mixing, etc., but $100 millions of budget won't buy them the emotional core of this forgotten movie.

GrandeMarguerite Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1959, this film deserves more attention from movie lovers all around the world. Some critics regard "The Great War" as Monicelli's finest work - and they might be right. Set in Northern Italy during World War I, of course the film is definitely antiwar. As Monicelli once said in an interview : "I wanted to show things as they were -- as usual, badly conducted and led, and no one wanting to fight, or knowing what they were fighting for." It is history from the point of view of the humble people, with a good deal of irony. Starting as a light comedy, "The Great War" ends on a very poignant note, while it doesn't hide any of the horrors of trench warfare.To me, Mario Monicelli and Dino Risi were the masters of Italian (tragi)comedy back in the 50s and 60s. Their best films (like this one) offer a combination of levity, social criticism and black comedy which is extremely appealing and unique. That said, Monicelli and Risi would never have done such great films without great actors. Here, Gassman and Sordi are a wonderful pair as two army mates caught in a conflict they don't really care about. The film also features beauty queen Silvana Mangano in a small but important part as Gassman's love interest.A classic, unmissable.

mantus La Grande guerra is one of the underseen, undervalued hordes of sublime European films that never see the light of day.In the 1960s in the centre of London there was the Academy, Oxford Street, Curzon, Mayfair and one of two other cinemas where the delights of the European cinema were on view. I have lived in Oslo since 1990. It is a cinema friendly city, but overloaded with Hollywood rubbish like most Bruce Willis actioners, or Nicolas Cage going for the money and not to expand his substantial talents as he has done in the past.This is not intellectual snobbery, just a cry from the heart about the lack of quality that is so endemic in current films."Crouching Tiger, Flaming Dragon" - I forget the real title is an example of American audiences accepting the quality of non-US movies."Die Hard"-type movies are good only to perhaps release aggression. It shows the typical obsessive need for America to breed only heroes. The villains with the fantastic exception of John Malkovich are usually superb English actors with foreign accents. Alan Rickman in "Die Hard" and Jeremy Irons in one of the mindless sequels.U571, now the most popular film in video shops where I live is such a devasting con-trick. A real piece of history when a British submarine acquired the Enigma decoding machine which made a significant difference for the Allies to get advance information about German war plans. The heroes are American. Sickening. Dramatic licence is one thing, but fraud is another. The event occurred six months before the US even entered the war. These are well-known complaints.Reminds one of the crassness of putting of Warner Bros. promoting "Objective Burma" in the autumn after the end of the war. Depiction of Errol Flynn (unfit for war service) winning against the Japanese military with not one British soldier in sight.Reminds me of the stories of a close friend and veteran of World War II. The US Army using earthmoving machinery to dig trenches when the British had shovels, the often sidelining of American troops due to the prevalence of veneral disease. The stories of British and other troops relieving American positions with a quarter of the manpower.In movies, with the exception of garishly-suited black pimps in stretch limos, the villains in movies and TV series used BMWs, and other European cars, which also were often beset with engine problems. Unlike the perfection of GM, Ford models etc._Don't get me wrong. With the exception of a mad Bellevue, New York psychiatrist I had once Americans are certainly charming, friendly people.La Grande Guerra is one of the thousands of films that ought to be revived every 10 years like a classic Disney feature.

faldi I think this is one of the italian masterpieces of all times, disguised as a "comedy", just because the main characters are the best italian comedians of all times, Sordi and Gasmann. I would call it the "Divina Commedia" of comedy and of deep feelings against war but for the defense of one's country.