Rating 8.5
Sentiments in several previous comments rang true with me as well. I also discovered this film one late sleepless night thanks to the wonders of TCM, and found it delightful for it's realistic story and complimentary offbeat camera style. One thing seems to have been overlooked, however. One of the previous comments stated that the movie is focused almost entirely on the main characters. While technically true this comment misses an easily overlooked but very important aspect of the film. Until about the last 15 minutes before the end of the film we are not entirely sure who the main characters are. We start with general scenes of the war, not a particular story. We focus on the General, then cut to one Italian private. He disappears and we focus on another. The general is constantly on the verge of escaping. "The Girl" at one point ejects the soldier from the picture for about 10 minutes. Even the title misleads us into thinking that only the girl and the general are major characters when, it is at least arguable, that they are only 2 out of 3. The loosely centered visual style only increases this impression, since the landscape often takes up almost as much frame space and focus as the characters. In a much more subtle way it resembles the moment in the Princess Bride where the main characters disappear from view and we are invited to presume them dead. We watch the swamp, an animal wanders through the frame and we wait for **something** to happen. In the last half hour of the girl and the general "something" does happen and we finally get a sense that these are the characters and this is their story. After the first hour and a half of the movie it almost seems a bit cliché. Yet one might say, as has already been said, that the war has been a secondary factor, one more event that complicates the character's lives. In a way, however, the war is as much a star of the show as anything else. The landscape, the war, the soldier, the girl, the general; in different periods and with different intensities each have taken up a very roughly equal part of our focus until the last segment of the movie. Finally as we head into in the minefield we get a sense that we are watching a stable party of adventurers, or at least a fairly constant bunch of people (and their donkey) try to make it through one last obstacle before the can reach safety. But will they "make it"? Just a little before the end a classic war movie cliché gives the game away, but till very near that point we don't know who will make it and who will not. More than any war buddy movie that I have seen this film preserves, for most of its length a very tenuous understanding among the audience. We have seen other characters not just be assembled and then subtracted from, but freely come and go. Will these characters make it to the end? Until very near the end, we just don't know.
Sentiments in several previous comments rang true with me as well. I also discovered this film one late sleepless night thanks to the wonders of TCM, and found it delightful for it's realistic story and complimentary offbeat camera style. One thing seems to have been overlooked, however. One of the previous comments stated that the movie is focused almost entirely on the main characters. While technically true this comment misses an easily overlooked but very important aspect of the film. Until about the last 15 minutes before the end of the film we are not entirely sure who the main characters are. We start with general scenes of the war, not a particular story. We focus on the General, then cut to one Italian private. He disappears and we focus on another. The general is constantly on the verge of escaping. "The Girl" at one point ejects the soldier from the picture for about 10 minutes. Even the title misleads us into thinking that only the girl and the general are major characters when, it is at least arguable, that they are only 2 out of 3. The loosely centered visual style only increases this impression, since the landscape often takes up almost as much frame space and focus as the characters. In a much more subtle way it resembles the moment in the Princess Bride where the main characters disappear from view and we are invited to presume them dead. We watch the swamp, an animal wanders through the frame and we wait for **something** to happen. In the last half hour of the girl and the general "something" does happen and we finally get a sense that these are the characters and this is their story. After the first hour and a half of the movie it almost seems a bit cliché. Yet one might say, as has already been said, that the war has been a secondary factor, one more event that complicates the character's lives. In a way, however, the war is as much a star of the show as anything else. The landscape, the war, the soldier, the girl, the general; in different periods and with different intensities each have taken up a very roughly equal part of our focus until the last segment of the movie. Finally as we head into in the minefield we get a sense that we are watching a stable party of adventurers, or at least a fairly constant bunch of people (and their donkey) try to make it through one last obstacle before the can reach safety. But will they "make it"? Just a little before the end a classic war movie cliché gives the game away, but till very near that point we don't know who will make it and who will not. More than any war buddy movie that I have seen this film preserves, for most of its length a very tenuous understanding among the audience. We have seen other characters not just be assembled and then subtracted from, but freely come and go. Will these characters make it to the end? Until very near the end, we just don't know.