Edoardo De Angelis’ ‘COMANDANTE‘ tells the story of the Italian Royal Navy Submarine ‘Cappellini’, or more like tries to give a glimpse into the life of Commander Salvadore Todaro (Pierfrancesco Favino), who sinks an armed merchant ship but then decides to help the shipwrecked Belgians who otherwise would have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the Opener of the 80th Venice Film Festival.
De Angelis’ 16th film is a war movie and recalls a true story. It definitely offers a premise that has everything laid out for an interesting story. The plot already offers something interesting to look at: A commander who dismisses military laws and helps a group of people who also stated that they wouldn’t have done the same thing for him. We have a conflict that could showcase interesting dynamics. Sadly, it didn’t. Although the Film is gorgeous to look at – the pictures are captivating, there’s a scene underwater where we see a lot of jellyfish passing through while seeing multiple bombs going off in the distance, making war look awfully senseless. There is an ongoing narrative that war is turning humans into vessels and questioning the existence of war in general as an ongoing theme in this. It just wasn’t well executed.
While the characters we got a tiny glimpse of sparked interest, it didn’t quite feel like they dove into their lives deep enough for the audience to truly care. When characters would end up dying, I just didn’t really feel affected by their loss.
I left the theatre feeling not quite satisfied. In my opinion, what didn’t really work was the screenplay and the overall pace in this. The film tried to be so many things at once: an anti-war film, a biopic, a look into the cruel face of war. A Story of hope? It didn’t really know what it wanted to be.
I also may need to state that this film mostly laid out that the Italians were the good guys during WWII. There is a scene where Salvadore justifies his good-hearted actions as something he did, because (and this is something the character really said) he is Italian. It feels like this narrative just doesn’t really work, when the audience is aware of the cruelty that has also been going on under Mussolini’s regime.
Pierfrancesco Favino’s performance saves a lot of parts in this movie. Salvadores dialogues feel very patriotic or flat at times, it did the film a huge favor in having a good actor portraying that character.
From us the De Angelis film merits a rating of 2 Stars. Regrettably, it fails to effectively translate the potential of its story to captivate its audience.