Edoardo de Angelis’s war movie was made in collaboration with the Italian navy, which clarifies the pervasive sense that it’s attempting to launder Italy’s wartime reputationollywood knows exactly how to play it when it comes to portraying a second world war German officer. Get an actor like Christoph Waltz, stick him in a Nazi uniform, and have him strangle a kitten for fun before the opening credits finish.
Comandante, the new film from Edoardo De Angelis, won’t do much to clarify that disconnect, even though it actually hails from Italy and might be expected to do a bit more soul-searching. Naval officer Salvatore Todaro is very much the friendly face of the Italian war effort.
Not that the Belgians are particularly grateful: two of them attempt to sabotage their saviours’ vessel while muttering darkly about fascists. In Todaro’s response to this incident, there’s the faint sense that the pair have reneged on a kind of gentlemen’s agreement, as if it’s the height of rudeness to attempt to take down an Axis powers’ submarine during wartime. Todaro is presented as a man so noble he almost seems to misunderstand how war is supposed to work.
But if you’re prepared to ignore that boring little voice in your head that insists on whispering “is this film using a historical case study of one cuddly outlier to launder the wartime reputation of the Italian navy?”, there’s much to enjoy here. De Angelis offers some muscular film-making, with decent action sequences.