Il mestiere delle armi

This very interesting war film by Ermanno OLMI (1931-2018) was shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. It's about Giovanni de Medici (1498-1526), who, as Giovanni with the Black Ribbons, was a very popular military leader of the Italian Renaissance. The story had already been filmed in 1956 as the Italian adventure film GIOVANNI DALLE BANDE NERE / THE BLACK KNIGHTS OF BORGOFORTE by Sergio GRIECO with Vittorio GASSMAN in the title role.

But Ermanno OLMI's film takes a completely different path. This is not a lightly entertaining adventure film, but rather an almost philosophical discussion of the horrors of war. Giovanni de Medici is played in OLMI by the Bulgarian actor Hristo ZHIVKOV (1975-2023), who lost his battle with lung cancer last year. The war between the papal troops and the mercenaries fighting for the emperor is a dark and dirty affair in OLMI. The craft of weapons (that's how the original Italian title could be translated) is a pretty dirty business in which the aim is to outdo the opponent with intrigues and new types of weapons. In the case of Giovanni de Medici, who still fights with lances against Georg von Frundsberg's mercenaries, it is the firearms that bring even more death that give the craftsmen of war a decisive advantage. A charismatic and aggressive leader like the hothead Giovanni de Medici has to give up his arms at some point.

OLMI casts all the actors as if they had stepped out of Renaissance paintings. When it comes to setting, this film does something remarkable. Unfortunately, this Italian film gem has remained far under the radar of attention. What is offered is certainly not entertaining film fare, but a clever reflection on the depths of the craft of war at all times in human history.

Highly recommended!

Beautiful, melancholy attempt to reconstitute the world of Renaissance Italy, focusing on a small battle which, it turns out, is of extreme strategic importance, as in winning it, the way was opened for the French to invade Italy and sack it mercilessly. We learn much about the early role of gunpowder warfare, but also of the fortunes and misfortunes of highly-placed personalities who, like their subjects, lived constantly vulnerable to illness, death and the misfortunes of others which could drag them down from the heights of power to the depths of misery and poverty. I recommend this also for teaching history!

This is an absolute must for anybody interested in Olmi's work or in the Italian Renaissance. One of the best Italian productions in years.

As usual, Olmi concentrates on the grey landscapes of his native Padana plains, engulfed in a swirling fog dominating the human figures which move through it, in an atmosphere of timeless melancholiness. As in its masterpiece, "L'albero degli zoccoli", Olmi successfully tries to paint a picture of the characters' feelings and strivings through the pitfalls of a difficult existence, devoid of any intrinsec meaning.

Do not misunderstand me - this is none of the pacifist crap fashionable amongst trendy critics and intellectuals. Neither it is a convoluted attempt to convey "profound" sociological or psychoanalytical concepts. That's why it didn't win the prize it deserved at Cannes. The film is rather an attempt to represent the reality of human loneliness and meaninglessness within a particular historical setting: that of a time when soldiery was still a "mestiere", a job, a professional choice devoid of the religious overtones which national myths have impressed on it in later times.

The Generals of both armies are no heroes, but rather human beings endowed with very human needs - Giovanni writes his loving wife to send him underpants, and his far less loving uncle, the Pope, to send him some money to pay his men. These are poor and humiliated men, fighting in the pope's behalf, and receiving blessings (instead of money) in exchange. Their one solace through religion consists in the act of burning churches and crosses to warm themselves a little - "That's the Christ of us poor people, he will help us", they say finding a huge wooden crucifix, and the face of the Christ being burnt is a testimony to their grieves. But the leader of the German Landsknechten, famous von Freundsberg, is also an old man who, for all his vain ferocity, is forced to go back to Germany after his victory because of his old age and illnesses.

The peasants fleeing through the fog, or hung by the German troopers, are wistful - more than tragic - elements of an unmoving landscape, mute testimony to the eternal cycles of war, of suffering, of pathetic strives to win victories that will be forgotten one day or week or month later, as new puppets will "strut and fret their hours upon the stage, and then will be heard no more" (from the famous monologue of Macbeth).

A masterpiece from Ermanno Olmi. A film worth seeing wherever you live.

If you are looking for a relaxing and commercial film don't see this one. In my case it took me 20 minutes to get deeply involved in the plot and the film atmosphere. Is a nice biographic story of an arm maker in the Italian middle age. The countryside (shot in Romania and Bulgaria) is giantly underlined by Ermanno Olmi's hand and all the characters were completely well represented by the actors.

Either you like the plot or not but certainly you will notice the direction of still one of the MOST important Italian directors nowadays.

Rating: 7/10

This is, in many ways, the most complicated and mature film Ermano Olmi has made and it's austerity and marginalizing narrative against setting and period make it hard to come to terms with. It resembles the Rosselini historical biographies, with action often played in wide shot like traditional gallery art but here the film making and performance are far more skillful and effective.

Gradually we do come to recognize the head of the Papal forces trying to ride down the German invaders, intent on looting Rome, despite the shaky loyalty of his mercenary troops (Machiavelli is evoked as a military commentator) and the lack of support from local rulers. We even know about his social life and his laundry lists.

The use of historic buildings and detailed costumes (burnished armor for night fighting) is a tradition which goes back as far as the WWI Italian cinema. Profession Of Arms is one of it's best outings and the military material is particularly imposing - the spear-men making a dangerous looking fog silhouette spike barrier that the cavalry charge, the foundry men producing artillery and the constant drawing of those long swords.

The sting is in the tail with the narrator telling us that after the calamity of Commander de Medici, the sixteenth century rulers declared that that weapon of mass destruction, the cannon, would be forever banned. It does make it's point.

Annonuti does voice over.