Il partigiano Johnny

Boredom. In a sense this film, based very faithfully on Fenoglio's book, is a philosophical study on life as a sequence of periods of boredom, shattered by sudden action. And WAR seems to depict this condition perfectly. Viewers seeking traditional war-movie gimmicks, beware. This film embarks on another, far more realistic, depiction of 'action'. It reminds us that true ethics in war (in this case the Partisan's Anti-Fascist cause), come with severe sacrifice. Hunger, fear, cold, and... boredom. The movie centers on 'Johnny'...partisan codename for our intellectual protagonist... and on the fellow fighters who come in and out of his personal sphere during the German occupation of northern Italy. Here, 'the enemy' is not only foreign, but (most bitterly) local; Italian. Much dialogue and voice-over is dedicated to Johnny's musings, doubts and convictions about the whole affair. It is an intellectual's movie.But that doesn't make it an élitist film. It stays by the side of the common man, straight to the end. And it doesn't shun sudden outbreaks of action. As a spectator I was constantly made to 'feel' the biting cold of the 'langhe' region where,(all the more realistically), the true events portrayed actually took place. Death appears in a burst of sudden gunfire amidst the bracken, and just as promptly all is calm and bucolic again. Chiesa's direction is dry, maybe a trifle stiff in interiors... but on the whole he is able to maintain the balance between literature and film which "Il Partigiano..." requires. All acting is very effective. On seeing Steven Soderbergh's approach to filming the two CHE GUEVARA films a couple of years back I was instantly convinced that THIS movie was viewed by Del Toro or Soderbergh first, and used as a guideline for how 'guerrilla' movies (as a pose to fully-fledged 'army movies') should be shot. It is no small achievement that this film has paved the way for a truly realistic approach to the 'existential' tangle of war, putting aside the flamboyant, adrenalistic, gung-ho style of the various 'Platoons' or 'Apocalypse Nows'. If you can find it...see it. And pore through it as you would a good book.

This is a good movie, from the novel by Beppe Fenoglio, one of 20th Century masterpieces of Italian Literature. It wasn't easy putting this novel on film, but the director did quite a good job. It's not an action movie: it's more about Johnny asking himself what he's doing and why he's doing it and especially if what he's doing is right. I have seen this movie in anguish, because I had read the book before and I knew the end.

Quite an interesting, intellectual film. It beautifully captures the landscapes of the Langhe hills, as well as the faces, clothing and attitudes of their inhabitants, and the general atmosphere of partisan warfare.

However, the director remains almost imprisoned in his attempt to transpose Fenoglio's book into a film. He tends to portray too many isolated parts of the book with strict accuracy and so misses the substance. Some crucial themes are just hinted at and almost impossible to catch for a viewer who didn't read the book: the partisans' disorganization, the feuds between communist and moderate bands, the reluctance of the latter to engage in any serious fight, Johnny's critical relationship towards his comrades that moves him to switch allegiance from one group to another. Furthermore, the fighting scenes are decontextualized beyond the point; for example, the partisans' desperate effort to melt through the lines of the major Fascist encirclement does not express the drama conveyed by Fenoglio's intense description, and is almost reduced to a fighting scene like any other.

The film tends to concentrate on one message: the boredom and meaninglessness of war, and especially of partisan warfare, dominated by long periods of inactivity suddenly broken by abrupt, mostly unexpected shootouts against an often invisible enemy. In a different cultural context this might be a powerful message, but in present cinematography it seems to me too conventional and politically correct to deserve any special praise. Where is a war film that doesn't strive to convey some kind of pacifist undercurrent? In the same way, Johnny's silent, introverted idealism embodies a contrasting point to the general atmosphere of monotony and purposelessness. It risks to turn the film into still another idealization of Antifascist resistance and the protagonist into the stereotype of the tormented hero, full of misgivings and yet willing to overcome his doubts and problems to advance the cause of good and see that justice is finally done. If you want to build a Proustian mood please do not warp it subtly in its opposite by appending some redeeming ideological mumbo jumbo to it.

A remarkable film to watch for the patient viewer, but do yourself a favor and watch it cum grano salis.

To me, the greatest merit of this movie is the recreation of the 1940's atmosphere. The photography is mind boggling, since you believe its an old movie that you are watching, quite impossible to think that it was shot in 2000!!

The streets, the interiors, the women, even the actor faces are the type of face they used to have in the 40's movies!!

It looks like a perfect example of the Neorealists movies of the 40's, like "Sciuscia", "Roma, citta aperta", "Humberto D.", etc. But as a watchable and pleasant movie..., it's so boring to see this partisans shooting, and shooting..., and shooting... into the far forest or hills around, without seeing the enemy or even a pigeon falling from the sky because a fatal blow reached it by mistake.

Everybody looks so famished and basic. Maybe I'm unjust because I don't care for this kind of movies and it's my problem, but even so, a whole movie of shooting around can be quite hard to swallow.

There are no likable characters, it looks like they are in the middle of winter without proper clothes, constantly suffering hunger and cold..., very uncomfortable! but maybe that was exactly the idea, to get us into the skin of these poor souls and so better understand the sacrifice they went through for an ideal of liberty.

Very well executed, no doubt, but I give it to you wrapped in multicolored cellophane with a nice bow tied on with my most sincere compliments.

Far too long, this movie goes nowhere and basically says nothing for over two hours... The only positive aspect of this film is a very faithful recreation of the atmosphere of the 40's, the costumes where excellent, the make-up, set decoration, etc. where all very good. Unfortunately, that is all that is good in this movie, everything else is far below average, almost senseless. The endless wanderings of Johnny through the Langhe region make no sense, there is no plan, no purpose in what he and his companions are doing. If this is what the Italian partisans where really like during the war, I pity all of those who died for no reason... I doubt this was the case though.

What I believe probably happened here is that the director tried to make a faithful adaptation for the screen of a novel which is almost impossible to film. I haven't read the book, but I can imagine it must be similar in the way it is constructed to a novel by Marcel Proust. By this I mean a lot of introspective thinking, endless depictions of a state of mind, almost no narrative or plot whatsoever... Well, this is fine in a well written book, but is almost impossible to successfully transpose onto film. This novel should probably have best been left on the bookshelf where it belongs.