Mario Monicelli, La Grande Guerra (1959) Another film is the founder of comedy in Italian, although I would call it tragicomedy. Two petty crooks - Milanese Giovanni Busacca (Vittorio Gassmann) and Roman Oreste Jakovacci (Alberto Sordi) do get to the front, although both tried to avoid this with all their might: Giovanni was in prison
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Mario Monicelli, La Grande Guerra (1959) Another film is the founder of comedy in Italian, although I would call it tragicomedy. Two petty crooks - Milanese Giovanni Busacca (Vittorio Gassmann) and Roman Oreste Jakovacci (Alberto Sordi) do get to the front, although both tried to avoid this with all their might: Giovanni was in prison and hoped to sit there, but then suddenly an amnesty was announced, and Oreste was sitting in the conscription center as a nurse, but he was also raked. And then fate will bring them together and they will stay together until the very end, the warriors of them, as well as of many others there, are still those. We see the First World War as completely meaningless, but merciless, because people are dying en masse, no organization, complete confusion, all this is shown very hypertrophied, but expressive, even from a purely visual point of view, especially given that the film is black and white. People do not look like defenders of the Motherland, especially our two heroes, Giovanni and Oreste, try to avoid dangerous situations in every possible way, they are, to put it mildly, cowardly, but nevertheless get into them, they do not want to fight. Fraudsters are crooks, but in some places they show humanity - they give money that they collected for themselves, the widow of their fellow soldier, and hiding from her that she is a widow, they did not want to upset her. The finale tragically completes this story, but again shot without any pathos, rather on the contrary, it is not in this film at all, it is a completely anti-militarist film. Well-chosen actors, both in main and secondary roles. At one time, the film was a great success, especially in Italy, although at first they did not want to release it on the screen, received the Golden Lion in Venice, and both actors - the David di Donatello Award, were nominated for an Oscar.
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