ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (9)
THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD
It’s that dead time between Christmas and New Year and I ‘m alone in the flat. With nothing better to do I decide to play one of the 2 war movies I received as Christmas gifts on my PC, but which should I chose. I study the covers. Rather implausibly both claim to tell “the greatest untold story of the Second World War”. The people who do the marketing for war films know that their viewers are the same sad acts who watch the Military History channel, can recite “The World at War” from memory and can tell you the names of Goebel’s children. They know their audience has a voracious appetite for fresh information and so every war film claims to be telling some previously untold story, which is patently rubbish. There can be no period of history that has been as painstakingly picked over, documented and analysed as WWII. Whole TV channels devote around the clock coverage to every conceivable aspect of the conflict. Somewhere my grandmother’s visit to the chiropodist in 1942 is captured and is showing on “Home Movies of World War II: Bunions and Barrage Balloons (In Colour)”. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if the story really hasn’t been told by now it’s more than likely because it’s not worth the telling. Rather like those magazines that promise to reveal 20 things you never knew about Jordan. (That’s Jordan as in Katie Price and not Jordan the country.) You know with a confidence that borders on certainty that these are things that no right thinking person ever needed or wanted to know.
The covers of the two films are both remarkably similar; a battle weary soldier with his back to the viewer gazes towards a horizon over which the unstoppable forces of mechanised warfare are advancing. We know from the image that he has fought against the odds and shown uncommon valour to safeguard the fate of nations. I notice that “Final Sacrifice” a European production is festooned with emblematic wreaths whilst “Pathfinders” a US straight to video affair has no such commendations. There was a time when the fact that a film had won awards would have swayed my choice but now seemingly every low budget European film has won some plaudit or another. On closer inspection the awards engender little confidence. “Official selection Frimley Film Festival” is not the Oscars just as “Shortlisted for Les Ballons D’Or de le Chien at the Ghent Film Festival” is not going to have anyone snatching the film of the shelf. Then I spot it. “Final Sacrifice” claims to have been 7 years in the making. This isn’t just another formulaic war flick this is a labour of love, this is art. I sit down and ready myself to appreciate this classic piece of cinematography.
Out of a sense of deep loyalty to those who follow my blog and because I’m sure Mark Kermode will not be covering this particular release, I will tell you what happened in the 81 minute film it took the Director 7 years to finish so that you don’t have to go through the same experience:
A small band of battle weary German soldiers are fighting a rearguard action in Northern Italy. They are being harassed by local partisans and American air raids which result in one of their number losing a leg. They are reinforced by a group of untried Italian troops led by a charismatic Captain Correlli type who appears to have spent the war in an eat all you want pasta buffet. The Germans and Italians do not get on and come to blows. They continue to be harassed by partisans and air raids until a messenger arrives and tells the officer commanding the German troops that the Americans are advancing, the rest of the German army is retreating but he and his men are to hold their position to the last man. The German officer who is demoralised by all the harassment he and his men have suffered asks for two volunteers and orders the rest of his men to join the retreat. One can sense that things are going to end badly when one of the volunteers is the one legged man who is at this point hobbling around on a crudely made crutch that looks like it was made by Fred Flintstone. The Italians form up and march off without a backward glance and the German officer and his two comrades ready themselves for their act of senseless sacrifice. At this point I prepare myself for scenes of heroic resistance against overwhelming odds as the Germans hurl back vastly superior American forces. Instead I watch as the heroes are speedily overwhelmed and killed inflicting minimal casualties on their attackers.
As the camera focuses on their dead bodies the final credits begin to roll and I am left thinking “how could this possibly have taken 7 years?” There is no narrative arc, no resolution, what were they doing? And then I think of some of the projects I have begun in the past seven years and I mellow. As I put the DVD in its case and earmark it for the charity shop I wonder whether I should put some laurel wreaths on my blog to entice readers. Perhaps not.
