La Guerre de Troie

If I remember well it was last year (1997) when I first saw this movie on the private Italian channel Rete 4 one Sunday afternoon. It was broadcasted in the series "Kolossal All'Italiana". At the same time, the Italian state TV RAI3 was showing "Helen of Troy" in the series "Colossi di Casa", both series implying that the movies were epics filmed in Italy. Before viewing this film I thought it was some sort of low-budget re-make of "Helen of Troy", but on watching it I was surprised to find out otherwise. Even though the storyline is basically similar in both films, this one offers a different kind of entertainment. While "Helen of Troy focuses more on the love affair between Helen and Paris, this movie is more concerned on the psychological situations of the principal characters, namely Aeneas. The final scene of "La Guerra di Troia", showing Aeneas escaping carrying his son in his arms after the death of Creusa is much more touching than the finale of the other movie showing Helen looking longingly at Troy where Paris had been killed. Even though I liked more "Helen of Troy" because of its better cinematography, better colour and better acting, still I have to admit that this one is of a higher level than many other Italian sword and sandal films of that era.

As the movie begins, a small group of Trojans (or is it the Greeks) on horseback stand facing towards their beloved Troy (or maybe its Athens). As the epic story is introduced in a voiceover, I watched curiously as one of the horses raised his tail in an arc and then casually "took a dump" one might say. A comment on the upcoming tale or performance? Actually, the horse was rather too severe in his prejudgements. As "sword and sandal" epics go, this one was not too bad. Steve Reeves looked chiseled and handsome, most of the sets and costumes were convincing, and there were some beautiful horses and chariots, although way too many battle scenes, shot long range so it was mostly a blur and a lot of shouting in Italian or something. Not a bad way to brush up on your Homeric history though, with the whole cast of characters from Helen to Casandra, Ulysees to Archilles (who got killed by an arrow shot in the "you know where").

I usually begin my reviews with a brief description of how the movie starts out. However, since this is about the Trojan War, beginning with the deaths of Hector & Patroclus, through to the Trojan Horse - you might be able to guess that from the titles in Italian and English - I'm going to suggest that you might read the ILIAD. There are some nice translations available.

Anyway, it's a pretty good Swords-and-Sandala flick, starring the inevitable Steve areeves as Aeneas, the pretty Juliette Mayniel as Helen and the unable-get-work John Drew Barrymore as Ulysses. Barrymore, the son of the better known John Barrymore, seems to have been a difficult man to work with, when he wasn't in jail for drugs or living in the desert.

Mostly one looks at these movies for the costuming, the sets and the homoerotic content, and they're all well represented here. I'd like to comment on the acting here, but there's always a big disconnect in the Italian peplum flicks, since they were shot in Italian, and later had voice-over artists loop their dialogue for the American releases. The English voice work is pretty good.

I had missed out on a chance to watch this on the big screen during the B-movie retrospective at the 2004 Venice Film Festival; with hindsight, I feel that it's a picture that should be viewed in theaters as the TV screen simply can't do justice to its spectacular widescreen photography! As a matter of fact, of all the peplums I've been watching of late, this has probably been afforded the highest budget; it's certainly the most handsome production of the lot...

I had watched two other films about the famous and lengthy Trojan War - Robert Wise's HELEN OF TROY (1955) and Wolfgang Petersen's TROY (2004), a Maltese co-production that was filmed (for the most part) over here - but this Italian version more than holds its own when set up against them! Steve Reeves has perhaps his most substantial role (apart from that of Hercules, which made his name) and, despite his notable physique (which is put to the test against legendary Greek hero Achilles), his character is a peace-loving man and certainly more thoughtful than usual for him. His wife (Paris' sister, whom he married in secret) is played by lovely French actress Juliette Mayniel - who had earlier movingly played one of the victims in Georges Franju's seminal horror masterpiece EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1959); interestingly, director Giorgio Ferroni had just made a good variant on that film called MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN (1960)!

Understandably, the narrative only tackles the last year of the war, so that Hector (perhaps the strongest figure in TROY) is already dead when the film opens; similarly, the relationship between Paris (actually presented as the villain of the piece, if still basically wimpish) and Helen (whose role is pretty much left in the background) has deteriorated considerably - which only serves to give the senselessness of the unending carnage added poignancy! At the forefront of the plot are two other historical figures: in fact, Achilles is so impressively personified by Euro-Cult regular Arturo Dominici (best known as Javutich, Barbara Steele's powerful and devoted acolyte in Mario Bava's BLACK Sunday [1960]) that the film loses some steam once he is famously dispatched by an arrow in his heel; similarly, John Drew Barrymore (as Ulysses) is a dominant personality during the film's first half but, once the Trojan Horse is constructed (conveniently off-screen), he pretty much disappears from the narrative! The same fate, alas, befalls the characters of Priam, Menelaus and Agamemnon; all of these roles would receive a lot more stature in TROY, and also the luxury of such stalwart performers as Peter O'Toole, Brendan Gleeson and Brian Cox respectively! Another regrettable element in the film is the fact that every soldier that is felled bursts out into exaggerated wailings and screams, which renders the otherwise efficiently-handled battle scenes unintentionally amusing!

So, while the film does sag a bit during its last lap, the scenes depicting the destruction of Troy by the wily Greeks and the subsequent flight of the survivors (including Reeves and his new-born child, Mayniel's character having died giving birth to it!) are certainly worth waiting for - though obviously done on a lesser scale than would be the case in TROY - and the film, as a whole, still emerges as one of the best peplums out there...

Having watched a spate of Trojan War movies recently, I have to say this is among the best. It's not as epic as Robert Wise's excellent HELEN OF TROY from 1956, but far superior to the lame 2003 TV movie of that title and also to the Brad Pitt vehicle TROY.

The story begins at the very end of the war, with events in full swing. The focus is on the Trojan noble Aeneas (Steve Reeves), a man of peace forced by circumstance to become a great warrior. Paris and Helen are portrayed as burned-out, bitter lovers; Paris's death scene is quite dramatic. The various Greek besiegers (Achilles, Ajax, etc.) are sharply drawn.

The sets are wonderful. The CGI monstrosities of TROY and even the imposing sets for Wise's HELEN OF TROY were far too overblown to be historically credible; here we see a much more likely representation of the Bronze Age city, with a low wall, small but exquisite temples, dirt streets, and a populace weary of siege and infighting. The camp of the Greeks is built on an equally convincing scale.

Anchoring the whole film is Reeves' portrayal of Aeneas. Playing Hercules made him world famous, but this is the role he was born for. His heroic stature is truly impressive. Happily, he reprised the role in a sequel, LAST GLORY OF TROY (LA LEGGENDA DI ENEA), which picks up the story of Aeneas after his flight from Troy and his arrival in Italy, where once again the warrior must make take up arms to achieve the peace he desires. In both movies, the filmmakers' use of elements from The Iliad of Homer and The Aeneid of Virgil is intelligent and laudable. Together these films deliver a truly impressive vision of the earliest legends of ancient Rome.