the audience applauded

just watch it!

Boring

Am I Missing Something?

I generally enjoy war movies, particularly WW2, and I'm not obsessively fanatical about true-to-life details. But this movie is just not very good.It starts out with great potential. The new lieutenant's introduction to the dangers of the British 88's, where he burns one of his "three miracles" definitely grabs one's attention. The sniper incident is also interesting. The soldier's personalities are sympathetic and you do come to care for them.But there is a bit too much lack of realism. The scene with Mussolini's horse is absolutely ridiculous. While it's evidently true that El Duce had his horse (which was white, not black as shown here) sent to Africa in order to ride it in a triumphal march into Egypt, I very much doubt it was loaded into an ordinary army truck strewn with hay and driven around aimlessly by a couple of lost-and-clueless Italian truck drivers! The other truck was loaded with shoe polish so the soldiers could polish up their boots for the event... pull the other one! There are also too many scenes of soldiers traveling through the desert hatless and with minimal gear... at times without even a canteen. In the desert of North Africa you're not getting far without head protection and without water. The actors aren't even particularly tanned... without hats their heads would be sun-burnt! Beyond issues of realism, which can be dismissed in pursuit of a good story... well, there isn't really a good story. The Italians are bombed presumably by the Brits (who are hardly ever seen) and they get their butts kicked, but any battle scenes are left to the imagination in mostly dark shots of night fighting with bombs exploding in the distance. I'm guessing the budget didn't allow for scenes of tank battles, although that would have been nice to include in a movie about a WW2 front where battles between tanks were the essence of strategy and tactics.The film does give a sense of the hot white emptiness of the desert battle front but beyond that it's rather tedious. By halfway thru the movie I was counting the minutes to the end.

This is a good movie of men in war, not a war movie Hollywood style. It shows the madness of war and (at the beginning at least) reminds me of the surreal atmosphere of another great movie, "Il deserto dei tartari". El Alamein - Linea di Fuoco is a movie that gives at last some justice to the brave men who fought and died in Africa for their country, at that time led by a dangerous gambler, not because they were fascists (those stayed far from the battlefront) but because they felt it was their duty. They didn't lack courage or skills but the means of more advanced industrial powers - the German-Anglo-Saxon reputation in warfare being largely due to superior production and logistics. Showing how Italy could fall in love for "Il Duce" was clearly out of this movie scope and reach, but perhaps it will help reading again this quotation attributed to a world expert in this field, Herr Hermann Goering: "People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country". In our days, our leaders do not even have to show us we are being attacked - see headlines for "preemptive war", "Iraq", "Iran"...

History has not been kind to the Italian army for it's efforts in WWII, garnering a rather depressing image. Ill-equipped, ill-trained and ill-led, they were trounced by the British in North Africa prior to Rommel and the Afrika Korp's arrival, and later gave up the ghost in their own country with little resistance. So it is interesting to get the viewpoint of that nation on the subject of their part in the war. This film portrays the trials of a division on the front. It dispenses with the traditional war movie clichés, guns blazing, American heroics, you're more than familiar with it... choosing instead to focus more on the lives of the soldiers who have tired of a conflict that is heading nowhere bar the inevitable defeat whilst the British horde their forces. The initial hour covers small tales and little moments that break the boredom of life on the immobile front. An artillery attack here, a swim in the ocean there, a bullet dodged, a mortar shell detonating just far enough away to allow the soldiers to see another day. I enjoy this style of movie, where it does not attempt to tell a grand story, rather give us an insight into how people cope with being alive in such a morbid situation.The second half of the film sees the British finally assault the Italian lines, which are overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers that are brought to bear. The division is over-run and forced to retreat, and no longer is anything relevant to these men but the slim hope of survival, pushing on, hoping to make it home. Ridiculous orders to stand fast come down from Il Duce, far removed from the ravages of desert war. The film becomes a detached, dreamlike affair as the dwindling force stumbles through the dry desert, pushed westward, severely lacking food and water.This film may also hold the distinction of being the only WWII movie to feature full frontal male nudity, but I can't qualify that comment. Beyond that, this is an excellent movie - devoid of the trappings of Hollywood and presenting the conflict from the viewpoint of a bitter, soul-crushing defeat for the Italians. They may have been over-matched, but they were no different to any other soldier who just wanted to make it to the end of the war.Top notch.

Given its small budget, this is a fine little film about Italian troops abandoned in the face of the British counter attack at El Alamein in late 1942.More films and books need to be made about this sad chapter in the history of Italy, whose international military reputation is somewhat lower than that of the French.Italian troops gave no less to their cause than did Germans or the British, the Russians, the Americans, and the Japanese. But because of poor leadership from Mussolini on down, they were forced to surrender in droves, and as much as we don't want to admit it, we Westerners hold those who surrender in pretty low esteem.This film goes a long way toward correcting the historical record through its touching story, beautiful acting, wonderful art direction, and absolutely stunning cinematography.