Last Letters from Monte Rosa

Im very touched your work and speechless. Its brilliant. The work that you done as a director on this is simply amazing and your sensitivity towards your story, crew, cast, cultures, humor is so real and honest that it shines out of every frame. You really mastered it all until you where finished and its my honor to watch your finished first feature film. There is simply nothing that could have been done better. The sound - the edit - I was so with all your characters and the choice you made to show people at war you held through the very end of the film. I cant imagine how much work this all was for you - how much swamped ; ) THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS - THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT FILM. Its amazing how you felt for everybody there and it will be my great honor to bring this film to my little community where I was raised in Austria. Im sure that everyone will be thankful to see a movie from this time that is not judging anyone but truly shows how things change in times of war. The love and respect you showed for each character and your crew crosses the images to my heart and I feel very happy to have met you here in Brooklyn. Thanks for the DVD you gave me. The thing is - it does not feel like you gave me a DVD, you gave me the largest gift a men could give.

With all my respect; Ulli Gruber

This was a highly entertaining, informative and enjoyable movie. I loved the fact that it was written in Italian and German and particularly that the viewpoint was in the same languages. What a wonderful story, never told, about the Italian regular Army's relationship with the German occupation, pitted against a resistance which would ultimately succeed by default. It was wonderfully told story shot, edited and directed the grand style befitting such a tale. I couldn't believe the wonderful casting and how it appeared as if they were from the era they were depicting. Because of the nativity of the men there seemed actually to be the inscrutability of reality and honesty in their portrayals, almost as if they were channeling the horror the people who had experienced WWII on own turfs. George Wienbarg

This film has all the quintessential elements a film should possess-a superb cast, an untold story delivered from a unique perspective, wonderful writing interspersed with moments both light and humorous as well as thought-provoking, and a wonderful director at its helm. It beautifully conveys the banality of everyday life for front-line troops combined with the sheer terror of modern warfare and enables the American viewer to empathize with an enemy fighter in a way that few war movies have done in the past. Although I was surprised by the high level of realism and technical detail achieved by the film, it was the relationship of the German and Italian soldiers, a relationship that has rarely been explored despite Hollywood's obvious fascination with the European theater, that truly carried the film. The tension-filled, yet often comical dynamic between the downtrodden soldiers of the two armies, seemingly fighting for dramatically divergent goals, fully captivated me, allowing me to forget that the American GI was little more than an afterthought in the film. A film that is particularly relevant for our times and should be viewed by all-highly recommended!

"Last Letters from Stalingrad", the 1950 compilation of the supposedly authentic war letters of Nazi soldiers caught in the bloodiest WW2 battle, has become the primary source of inspiration for the unprecedented war epic portraying the last days of WWII fighting in Italy - "The Fallen" and its second part "The Last Letters of Monte Rosa". Authenticity, viewed here as a meticulous, accurate re-enactment of the historical details - battleground weapons from period rifles to tanks and planes, soldiers' uniforms, etc - is more than sufficient condition for the compassionate and intimate presentation of the war daily routine with its sudden changes and upheavals, its cruelties and its rites. In this shoe-string budget production the up-and-coming filmmaker Ari Taub brings fear, absurdity and humor (all related to everyday realities of war) - into their proper balance.

In "Letters" the enemy (the Allies) is not personified, and our attention is focused instead on the uneasy relations between the German infantry and the Italian troops mercilessly raided by the partisans. Hollywood storytelling conventions are inevitable for such a traditional narrative, shot at the same time with - but started even before - the late-nineties wave of WWII epic blockbusters like "Thin Red Line", "Saving Private Ryan" or "Ivo Jima". At the same time a certain theatricality of the everyday, certain comical twists of even the most sad episodes, a true indie spirit of his "Letters" has radically distinguish the film from the glitz and glamour of the "dream factory".

Almost as ambiguous as "Last Letters from Stalingrad", Taub's retro-version also does its best to show a "human document which bares the soul of the man at his worst hour". Moreover, due to its unique balance between the tragic and the comical it provides a true Aristotelean, cathartic release of the emotions, especially in the final scene of German martyrdom and their last photograph for the American magazine (hence for posterity).

After all, Ari might be short for Aristotle.

Letters from Monte Rosa is a solid addition to the WWII genre. It is told from the point of view of Italian and German soldiers, who, as men of enemy nations, have seldom been the central subject of films widely seen by American audiences. Only a few titles -- The Bridge, Stalingrad and Cross of Iron among them -- have ever gotten meaningful exposure to the same aficionados who have seen Saving Private Ryan and the many WWII big studio battle action films made in the 1960s and '70s. In those films, almost invariably, the Germans of the Wehrmacht were automatons with Schmeissers and Tiger tanks defending an evil regime, and too seldom given human dimension as men who also longed for home, family, safety, and days without fear and suffering. As their worlds collapsed and death chased them, each soldier had to decide and to prove if he was a coward or courageous, if he would seek escape or do his duty. Letters from Monte Rosa shows us the horror of war, that there is seldom any glory in the ugly business of killing or dying. Still, sardonic humor pervades several scenes, and a few good belly laughs ease the tension even while building it. Director Ari Taub directs the actors well, asking them to show us the charisma and frustration, leadership and anguish of men in situations where there is little hope of survival. Tech credits are very good: the camera moves crisply, a textured sound scape provides a real sense of place, editing is proficient and puts us in the action. Production design is excellent for a low-budget effort. Also commendable is that the film strives to avoid the clichés so common to the war genre, and in so doing reveals a great passion for the theme that even enemy soldiers had dignity and souls.