2024-01-18 05:30:02
Director Luigi Comencini is inseparable from the golden age of Italian comedy in the 1960s. Thursday January 18 at 8:45 p.m., ViaStella invites you to see or rewatch one of his masterpieces: “The Great Mess” or “Tutti a casa” for purists. So yes, it’s a 1960 film in black and white, there are no special effects or Hollywood stars in the cast! But yes, it’s an event not to be missed for 3 reasons…
Before making you want to watch “The Great Mess”, a few words regarding the history of this film. September 1943, Mussolini is dismissed and Marshal Badoglio hastily signs an Armistice with the Allied forces. The country is in complete confusion. Second Lieutenant Innocenzi, played by Alberto Sordi, and his detachment find their barracks abandoned. They note with astonishment that the German troops now consider them as enemies. Innocenzi seeks to preserve a semblance of authority, but his soldiers leave him company. With the exception of one, Ceccarelli (played by Serge Reggiani). Disguised as civilians, the two men will have to go through incredible, yet terribly tragic, situations to return home.
Do you know the story of the Cassibile Armistice? “The Great Mess” looks back on this event with humor and realism!
At the end of August 1943, under the leadership of King Victor Emmanuel III, Mussolini was dismissed and replaced as head of government by Marshal Badoglio. After the landings in Sicily and Calabria in September 1943, Badoglio proposed an armistice to the Allies. Secretly signed on September 3, 1943 in Cassibile, a village near Syracuse in Sicily, this capitulation ended hostilities once morest British and American forces. Made official on September 8, 1943, the “Cassibile Armistice” was a turning point in the Second World War and placed Italy at a crossroads, torn between the Axis and the Allies. In search of a national identity, the unity of the country is seriously tested. A period of disorganization then follows: rout of the Italian troops left to their own fate, disillusionment, yesterday’s friends become today’s enemies.
Pour Luigi Comencini, “September 8 was so dramatic in its substance, so comical in its details, so paradoxical in its developments, that it rarely happens to a country.” (comments taken from an interview with Lorenzo Codelli, published in February 1974). “The Great Mayhem” depicts this painful period in Italian history by adding a good dose of comedy. For example, the scene where Second Lieutenant Innocenzi, who has just been attacked by the Germans, telephones his command. He learns of the signing of the Armistice and asks for the orders to follow… Nothing is planned, it’s a debacle! The situation is dramatic, but Innocenzi’s reaction is surprising!
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Second Lieutenant Innocenzi and his men have just been attacked by German soldiers, who until then were their allies. he telephones his command and learns that an armistice has been signed… It is the end of the war under heavy fire from the Axis forces • ©France 3 Corse ViaStella
In Italian comedies, there are fierce and burlesque satires, in which the central character seeks to extricate himself by all means from his social situation, without success! (“The Pigeon”, “Italian Divorces”, “Awful, Dirty and Mean”…). And there are historical chronicles that feature an antihero. No matter the narrative archetype, you never get bored! In the same scene, we can be outraged, scared, angry, then laugh out loud. It is this process of systematic transition from comedy to drama that Comencini uses brilliantly in “The Great Mess”. Faced with tragic situations, staged with great realism, the characters seek to escape without understanding the scope of what is happening to them. They then adopt comical behaviors, close to the grotesque. The goal here is to use humor to make us think regarding society, and even regarding the foundations of our own humanity. Like in this scene where Second Lieutenant Innocenzi finds himself talking alone when all his soldiers have abandoned him. Then comes the passage of a train transporting prisoners to their death…
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While his soldiers have abandoned him, Second Lieutenant Innocenzi and his faithful Ceccarelli will be brutally confronted with the reality of war, which despite the Armistice remains a tragic reality. • ©France 3 Corse ViaStella
Like Luigi Comencini, Alberto Sordi is a figure of Italian comedy. The main role of Second Lieutenant Innocenzi in “The Great Mess” therefore suits him perfectly. Both obsequious to his superiors and hateful to his subordinates, Innocenzi never thought for himself. Faced with the collapse of his army, his world collapses and his individuality takes precedence. This smallness of our humanity provokes laughter here but also amazement. He tries to keep his role as a little leader, but very quickly the situations he experiences will force him to review his own ideals. At the end of an initiatory journey, he will choose to act. He will pass “from a suffered war to a popular war”, as Comencini himself points out. Through this introspection, Comencini invites the audience to reflect on the nature of war and the impact it has on the individual and society. Like the reaction of Innocenzi’s father when his son tells him that he no longer wishes to be part of the Italian army.
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Sub-Lieutenant Innocenzi’s return home is a bit eventful… • ©France 3 Corse ViaStella
A precursor of the genre in 1953 with the film “Bread, Love and Fantasy”, Luigi Comencini will direct more than 50 films in his career, often mixing humor, derision and a reflection on the social reality of his country. Critics generally praised “The Great Mess” for its humanist approach and its ability to mix genres. This film offers a universal reflection on the ravages of war and on the small individual stories that play out at the heart of major historical events. It’s a film that remains relevant and touching, even decades following its release.
If you are convinced, see you this Thursday, January 18 at 8:45 p.m. on ViaStella.
Thursday January 25 at 8:45 p.m., watch a second film by Luigi Comencini, “My God, how did I fall so low?”
A film by Luigi Comencini from 1975 • © France 3 Corse ViaStella
Laura Antonelli, magnificent, illuminates this film made in 1975, between comedy and family story, a pamphlet once morest the puritanical Italian Catholic society of the time.
At the moment when, just out of the convent, the ravishing Eugenia de Maqueda marries for love the “plebeian” and rich Raimondo Corrao, she receives a telegram from her father which tells her that she is not his daughter and that his new husband is at the same time his brother. A separation cannot be envisaged, in this Sicily of the end of the 19th century, without giving rise to abominable slander. The couple therefore decides to live the rest of their lives chastely.
But the temptations multiply: during her honeymoon, Eugenia is actively courted by a Frenchman, Henry de Sarcey, who flees upon discovering the virginity of his prey…
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