I am a bit of a war movie buff. I am also interested in military history, and W.W.I is one of my specialties, since I even got my PhD with a dissertation on W.W.I narratives. I also discussed Emilio Lussu's novel (Un anno sull'altipiano) Rosi's film is based on. Well, sometime when they make a film out of a novel you love, you may get disappointed. I wasn't. In many points Rosi wasn't faithful to the novel, but hey, that's what screenplays must be. The film is gorgeous nonetheless. What makes me rather sad is the horrible fact that there is no DVD version of this authentic masterpiece of world cinema, one of the most intelligent and impressive war films ever. This is a shame for Italy. Low-level Italian B-movies of the 70s have been made into DVDs, but this film hasn't. It's a real shame.
8 Reviews
One of the most realistic historical movie.
emilian771 July 2000
About me, this is a masterpiece of the genre.It is a story about the brutality of war, telling the terrible events happened in the Italian front during world war I. Here we have General Leone, a cruel high official that, without any respect of human life, send his men to the slaughter armed only with guns against the austrian-asburgic machine guns. He is an imaginary personage, but is probably inspired to the real existed General Cadorna.He sadly famous for similar behaviors(such as collective executions of his soldiers for insignificant motivations,like for example thefts by an unknown),and for this,after an heavy defeat at Caporetto, he was replaced by much more able and honest General Armando Diaz. All of this represented with heartbreaking realism in this movie, that unlike other similar, prefer the historic accuracy instead that unrealistic heroism.
I have to signal the excellent photography.
I have to signal the excellent photography.
About the insanity of war
radlov15 November 1999
First World War. A more or less forgotten front: in the Italian Alps Italian and Austrian troops face each other. The Italian general Leone orders his men to storm the heavily defended Austrian lines without proper artillery support. They are butchered. Discontent finally leads to a mutiny.
This is a very dark movie that in a very moving way describes war in its utter absurdity. I consider it a great movie.
This is a very dark movie that in a very moving way describes war in its utter absurdity. I consider it a great movie.
Strong stuff
Bezenby3 March 2019
You don't get that many films about World War One in comparison to World War Two, and you certainly don't get a lot of films about Italy's involvement in the War. The Alpine Front sounds just as a horrible and nasty as every other front. Better scenery I guess, but I'm sure that wasn't a priority to the countless youths blown up or machine-gunned in futile frontal attacks on machine gun posts.
It's in the Alps the film takes place, although I'm unsure of the exact year. The Italian Army has been ordered to abandon a mountain, but is then immediately ordered to retake it. The men are understandably upset about this, but General Leone won't accept anything but courage from his men, even if it means making an example of them over and over again. On the side of the men are officers Pier Paolo Capponi and Gian Marie Volonte, who repeatedly acts as buffers between the insane orders of the senior officers and the crushed spirits of the men.
There's not much background to many of the characters, and I think this was done on purpose. All the infantry are burned out by the time we meet them, and still they are thrown into battle over and over again, until even the Austrian defenders beg them to 'turn back - stop committing suicide'. The soldiers don't have a choice, however, as their own machine guns are trained on their backs. It's death in either direction and to quote from a British soldier involved in the Battle of High Wood "You had to go forward because at least you had a chance to stick a knife in the person shooting at you'.
There are grumbles of rebellion among the soldiers, and as the orders to attack despite little progress, who will even survive long enough to rebel?
This realistic, horrific film is kind of like an Italian Paths of Glory, only with a bit more action (if you can call it that when people are basically slaughtered). Both Volonte and Capponi are pretty intense as the officers who know how futile the situation is, and the whole film rolls along pretty quickly, just like the never-ending attacks ordered by the top brass. The only female character is Daria Nicoladi, who puts in a quick cameo as a nurse tending to a wounded man following a particularly costly attack, which also happens to be a turning point for a previously loyal soldier.
It's in the Alps the film takes place, although I'm unsure of the exact year. The Italian Army has been ordered to abandon a mountain, but is then immediately ordered to retake it. The men are understandably upset about this, but General Leone won't accept anything but courage from his men, even if it means making an example of them over and over again. On the side of the men are officers Pier Paolo Capponi and Gian Marie Volonte, who repeatedly acts as buffers between the insane orders of the senior officers and the crushed spirits of the men.
There's not much background to many of the characters, and I think this was done on purpose. All the infantry are burned out by the time we meet them, and still they are thrown into battle over and over again, until even the Austrian defenders beg them to 'turn back - stop committing suicide'. The soldiers don't have a choice, however, as their own machine guns are trained on their backs. It's death in either direction and to quote from a British soldier involved in the Battle of High Wood "You had to go forward because at least you had a chance to stick a knife in the person shooting at you'.
There are grumbles of rebellion among the soldiers, and as the orders to attack despite little progress, who will even survive long enough to rebel?
This realistic, horrific film is kind of like an Italian Paths of Glory, only with a bit more action (if you can call it that when people are basically slaughtered). Both Volonte and Capponi are pretty intense as the officers who know how futile the situation is, and the whole film rolls along pretty quickly, just like the never-ending attacks ordered by the top brass. The only female character is Daria Nicoladi, who puts in a quick cameo as a nurse tending to a wounded man following a particularly costly attack, which also happens to be a turning point for a previously loyal soldier.
A lost classic.
miketraverss6 September 2022
This is really a lost masterpiece of an anti-war film. The total futility of the loss of life in wasted back and forth engagements to no advantage , just an horrendous mounting cost of carnage. Martinet officers strut their stuff, more interested in shooting their own men than any real advance. What was it in air those years ago that made men like this keep sending others into the meat grinders.
This is a very good war film that I can find on almost no list of the best war films. Gone and forgotten... because it was made in Italy??? I don't know.
More people should see it, up there with Kubrick's Paths of Glory.
This is a very good war film that I can find on almost no list of the best war films. Gone and forgotten... because it was made in Italy??? I don't know.
More people should see it, up there with Kubrick's Paths of Glory.
An unpleasant and inhumane war film, exactly what it needed to be
youllneverbe16 April 2009
Warning: Spoilers
"Many Wars Ago" (1970) Dir: Francesco Rosi
The First World War has been the subject of countless works of art in the last ninety years, and with good reason. It's the conflict we remember from our studies as the most needless of all: years of reckless leadership, territorial stalemates and extremely high casualties, all reverberations from a single political assassination in Sarajevo. If ever there was a true story that could be used to illustrate the horrors of war and the societal implications of diplomatic one-upmanship, the Great War was it. It was a conflict without ideologies, where millions died simply because they felt obliged to represent their country. With this film, Francesco Rosi addresses the fundamental foolishness of blind obedience in the bluntest way he can. We are not shown the characters' civilian lives, nor are we privy to their hopes and dreams. There is very little psychology explored either, and no moments of empathy for the enemy. "Many Wars Ago" is almost devoid of humanity; the soldiers we follow simply trudge onwards, advancing and retreating, abandoning vantage points only to reclaim them the next day. In this way, it is a pure war movie because it excludes all but the faltering military machines and the devastation they cause across forgotten fronts.
The film focuses on the futile actions of an Italian division in the Balkans. There are many slow shots of the dirtied infantry marching onward into the mist, then we cut to an Austrian ambush or an Italian offensive at varying times of day. Some are over hills, some in the forests. General Leone is in charge and seems eerily invincible as well as violently mad. His patriotism is the only excuse necessary for putting thousands of men in unnecessary danger (even in the context of a difficult open combat situation), and sending many to their deaths for cowardice, insubordination or mere clumsiness. Two lieutenants are the closest the audience will get to traditional protagonists, and they are compellingly played as downtrodden and pragmatic. They are never passionate because the war has sucked it out of them, they only try to make the best of Leone's wild commands and save as many lives as possible.
There is rarely respite in the bleak delivery of this material. It makes war seem utterly wretched and that's exactly what it's supposed to, for which Rosi should be commended. It is a serious war movie free of sentimentalism and cliché, although it may be too clinical for some viewers. In the eyes of Lieutenants Ottolenghi and Sassu we can see a back story that most directors would be happy to include if only in a monologue or a brief, stilted conversation, but not here. Rosi gives us nothing in the way of emotional reference points - these soldiers are young but weathered, and we can only guess at what made them this way.
Two especially decent scenes should be mentioned: one in which we see the soldiers showing Leiutenant Sassu that the Austrian snipers have their guns aimed precisely to fire through a tiny metal shutter in the Italian defensive wall, and another at the end of the movie where Leone discovers that Sassu has fought in all of his conflicts without being wounded. Both of these scenes cleverly exemplify the edgy, near-mutinous condition of the ailing Italian forces at this point in the war. They are debilitated and disillusioned, the pointlessness of it all is staring them in the face, and the audience has no idea how their movements affect the bigger picture of the Balkan front, or the rest of the war, at all. This may be the film's most skilfully communicated concept - there is no sense of scale, no back story, only mountains and cavalry and suicidal charges and endless mist, mutiny and strafing gunfire. That's why this is one of the darkest Great War movies ever made. Rosi tells us that his beginning is not a beginning, that his end is not an end, and that the machine of war pushes onward through the ever-developing chaos.
The First World War has been the subject of countless works of art in the last ninety years, and with good reason. It's the conflict we remember from our studies as the most needless of all: years of reckless leadership, territorial stalemates and extremely high casualties, all reverberations from a single political assassination in Sarajevo. If ever there was a true story that could be used to illustrate the horrors of war and the societal implications of diplomatic one-upmanship, the Great War was it. It was a conflict without ideologies, where millions died simply because they felt obliged to represent their country. With this film, Francesco Rosi addresses the fundamental foolishness of blind obedience in the bluntest way he can. We are not shown the characters' civilian lives, nor are we privy to their hopes and dreams. There is very little psychology explored either, and no moments of empathy for the enemy. "Many Wars Ago" is almost devoid of humanity; the soldiers we follow simply trudge onwards, advancing and retreating, abandoning vantage points only to reclaim them the next day. In this way, it is a pure war movie because it excludes all but the faltering military machines and the devastation they cause across forgotten fronts.
The film focuses on the futile actions of an Italian division in the Balkans. There are many slow shots of the dirtied infantry marching onward into the mist, then we cut to an Austrian ambush or an Italian offensive at varying times of day. Some are over hills, some in the forests. General Leone is in charge and seems eerily invincible as well as violently mad. His patriotism is the only excuse necessary for putting thousands of men in unnecessary danger (even in the context of a difficult open combat situation), and sending many to their deaths for cowardice, insubordination or mere clumsiness. Two lieutenants are the closest the audience will get to traditional protagonists, and they are compellingly played as downtrodden and pragmatic. They are never passionate because the war has sucked it out of them, they only try to make the best of Leone's wild commands and save as many lives as possible.
There is rarely respite in the bleak delivery of this material. It makes war seem utterly wretched and that's exactly what it's supposed to, for which Rosi should be commended. It is a serious war movie free of sentimentalism and cliché, although it may be too clinical for some viewers. In the eyes of Lieutenants Ottolenghi and Sassu we can see a back story that most directors would be happy to include if only in a monologue or a brief, stilted conversation, but not here. Rosi gives us nothing in the way of emotional reference points - these soldiers are young but weathered, and we can only guess at what made them this way.
Two especially decent scenes should be mentioned: one in which we see the soldiers showing Leiutenant Sassu that the Austrian snipers have their guns aimed precisely to fire through a tiny metal shutter in the Italian defensive wall, and another at the end of the movie where Leone discovers that Sassu has fought in all of his conflicts without being wounded. Both of these scenes cleverly exemplify the edgy, near-mutinous condition of the ailing Italian forces at this point in the war. They are debilitated and disillusioned, the pointlessness of it all is staring them in the face, and the audience has no idea how their movements affect the bigger picture of the Balkan front, or the rest of the war, at all. This may be the film's most skilfully communicated concept - there is no sense of scale, no back story, only mountains and cavalry and suicidal charges and endless mist, mutiny and strafing gunfire. That's why this is one of the darkest Great War movies ever made. Rosi tells us that his beginning is not a beginning, that his end is not an end, and that the machine of war pushes onward through the ever-developing chaos.
Hardcore Horror
jromanbaker24 January 2024
Francesco Rosi was arguably among the top few of great, and I do mean great, Italian directors. He blended fact with fiction and created in this film the most powerful argument against war that I have seen. There are no background stories to the characters involved, and no love stories to distract from the massacres on the field of battle. In ' Uomini Contro ' we see ordinary Italian soldiers at the mercy of their Austrian enemies, but also pitilessly at the mercy of their generals. The screen blazes with the hardcore horror of useless battles trying to conquer an unassailable hill. One battalion revolts at the orders of their ' masters ' and in the most terrible of all the film's scenes are executed. Nothing is spared the viewer including one of the men, trying to escape, dragging the stake he is bound to, and then shot in his legs before he is dragged back to be shot. The music overlaying this scene was so ecstatically beautiful that it seemed to be crying out to an order from a useless divinity to stop these atrocities. Alain Cuny, Mark Frechette and Gian Maria Volonte are excellent in their roles. And to my knowledge it was a film not widely shown.
"Murder is punished unless done in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
brogmiller7 February 2021
Director Francesco Rosi has 'freely' adapted 'A Year on a High Plateau' by Emilio Lussu in which the author relates his experience of the horrors of trench warfare as an infantry officer.
There is no doubting the technical excellence of this film. The muted tones and sweeping camerawork of Pasqualino de Santis together with the ominous score of Piero Piccioni are riveting and Signor Rosi has beautifully choreographed the scenes of mass slaughter. The question is of course does the film engage our emotions? In my case I'm afraid not. There are too many scenes where the director is trying to make a point and is simply laying it on with a trowel.
The author himself, a highly principled and respected politician, was still alive when the film was released and was no doubt surprised at the fate of his character in the final scene! He thought that although some episodes were faithfully re-enacted the film's spirit was far removed from that of his original.
He is portrayed here as Sassu by Mark Frechette in one of two Italian films he made following his debut in Antonioni's 'Zabriskie Point'. His is a sincere and understated performance and it is a great pity that this actor was such a troubled soul who was to meet a bizarre end while serving a prison sentence for robbery!
The character of mad General Leone, based upon General Giacinto Ferrero, is played by veteran Alain Cuny. This role is a gift to any self-respecting character actor and his performance is utterly mesmerising. It comes as no surprise that Mr. Frechette is dubbed but it does seem strange that Monsieur Cuny is also dubbed considering he had been appearing in Italian films since the early 1950's. This does not however detract from his magnificently menacing portrayal. The 'socialist' element here and knowing Signor Rosi's work, there has to be one, is personified by the Ottolenghi of Gian Maria Volonte whose far-Left leanings have been well documented.
Upon its release this film met with a great deal of resistance from the military authorities. It has this in common of course with 'Paths of Glory' with which it has inevitably been compared. It must be said that although made on a smaller budget and in black-and-white, Stanley Kubrick's film packs a bigger punch as does the underrated 'Westfront' of G. W. Pabst.
Whatever its merits Francesco Rosi's film lacks the subtlety of those two films but still serves as a grim reminder that whichever way you look at it, war is hell.
There is no doubting the technical excellence of this film. The muted tones and sweeping camerawork of Pasqualino de Santis together with the ominous score of Piero Piccioni are riveting and Signor Rosi has beautifully choreographed the scenes of mass slaughter. The question is of course does the film engage our emotions? In my case I'm afraid not. There are too many scenes where the director is trying to make a point and is simply laying it on with a trowel.
The author himself, a highly principled and respected politician, was still alive when the film was released and was no doubt surprised at the fate of his character in the final scene! He thought that although some episodes were faithfully re-enacted the film's spirit was far removed from that of his original.
He is portrayed here as Sassu by Mark Frechette in one of two Italian films he made following his debut in Antonioni's 'Zabriskie Point'. His is a sincere and understated performance and it is a great pity that this actor was such a troubled soul who was to meet a bizarre end while serving a prison sentence for robbery!
The character of mad General Leone, based upon General Giacinto Ferrero, is played by veteran Alain Cuny. This role is a gift to any self-respecting character actor and his performance is utterly mesmerising. It comes as no surprise that Mr. Frechette is dubbed but it does seem strange that Monsieur Cuny is also dubbed considering he had been appearing in Italian films since the early 1950's. This does not however detract from his magnificently menacing portrayal. The 'socialist' element here and knowing Signor Rosi's work, there has to be one, is personified by the Ottolenghi of Gian Maria Volonte whose far-Left leanings have been well documented.
Upon its release this film met with a great deal of resistance from the military authorities. It has this in common of course with 'Paths of Glory' with which it has inevitably been compared. It must be said that although made on a smaller budget and in black-and-white, Stanley Kubrick's film packs a bigger punch as does the underrated 'Westfront' of G. W. Pabst.
Whatever its merits Francesco Rosi's film lacks the subtlety of those two films but still serves as a grim reminder that whichever way you look at it, war is hell.
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