'Frank Capra: Mr America' Filmmakers On Why Their Candid Doc Of A Complicated Hollywood Legend Will Speak To Modern Audiences -- Venice
After a lot of scene-setting, with tearful wives seeing off their husbands and Todaro leading his men in a hearty singalong, the story begins in earnest when the sub pulls away on 29 September 1940. There’s an air of impending doom about all this , which creates an expectation the film doesn’t really end up delivering, since this turns out to be the very opposite of a suicide mission.
is hard to escape, De Angelis manages to do so, with impressive ease. In the early stages of the voyage, there’s a lived-in calm, and there’s a nice touch when the ship’s communications guy puts Radio Andorra on the ship’s sound system, so the boys can hear Billie Holiday’s ‘Fine and Mellow’. Favino is impressive, too, playing “the craziest and wildest” commander in the Italian navy as a combination of William Wallace and Captain Haddock.
The real story, however, begins when Todaro spots the Kabalo, a Belgian merchant ship with its lights off. Todaro only sinks “enemy iron” when firepower is visible, and this ship has a cannon on its deck. After blasting it into the depths of the sea, however, Todaro has mercy on the survivors, who plead innocence, and, at great risk to himself and the others, takes them on board and offers to drop them off at the closest neutral port.
Reactions were muted at the first Venice press screening, but it seemed to play well with the Italians in the house, who laughed heartily at some of the jokes, notably the cook’s reference to Neapolitans and their penchant for frying everything on the menu. It’s also quite unusual to see a war film in which the Italians are the heroes, for once. Otherwise,is just fitfully entertaining, an adventure yarn about a local hero that will struggle to find audiences internationally.
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