Mediterraneo by Gabriele Salvatores

Screened on 29th November 2007 at the Horse Hospital.

Mediterraneo by Gabrielle Salvatores - (1991) - 96 minutes

This film won an Oscar in 1992 for Best Foreign Language Film. A beautiful, clever comedy which plays on the nature of both Greeks and Italians in a rather unbelievable story as far as the total isolation of a platoon of Italian soldiers on a Greek island for the entire duration of the World War II. But the beauty of the comedy is based on this very isolation and the way these soldiers became part of the community on the island, which was deprived of the men who were taken prisoners by the Germans or were away fighting the war. The humor is intensive, logical and tangible and the conversations brilliant especially in the original languages.

For those who know the character of both Greeks and Italians this film will be considered wonderful and worth seeing it more than once.
The comedy is not an effort to make the evils of the war appearing unimportant but an appreciation that soldiers on both sides of a conflict have a lot in common rather than differences. The direction of Gabrielle Salvatores at its best.