O Capitão Corelli

I should have seen this movie earlier but seeing it at this late date after release did in no way diminish the tremendous enjoyment of the film. I admit it-I love non-American films-even if those films are American products. But this was so totally non-Hollywood in texture, locations and substance that I can easily forgive the intrusion of Hollywood personalities.

The script, the acting and the remarkably beautiful cinematography were so engrossing that the minor problems of plot simply were drowned in beautiful images. John Toll's brilliant camera work immediately impresses the viewer-so good that this viewer will rent the video more just to appreciate the beautiful play of light and dark in the screens images. I honestly felt that those images were three dimensional-that they could be lifted from the theatre and carried away.

Early on in his career, I watched Cage in what I thought was a dog of a film-something about angels in white robes standing on California beaches and subsequently dismissed him but after watching Corelli I must reassess his work-I thought the casting of him as the semi-professorial Corelli was a master stroke.

To make any comment on the events that occurred on Corelli's island is to trivialize those events because somebody sitting in Fremantle looking back can never appreciate the monstrousness of what happened. Hindsight is not an aide in this case but I do believe that movie magic was laid before viewers of this film.

After a somewhat slow start I thought this movie about the Italian occupation of a Greek island during World War II picked up and became a quite enjoyable watch for a couple of hours, from primarily two points of view.

The love triangle is an interesting one and strikes me as believable, because I know it happened in various places under occupation. Penelope Cruz played Pelagia, a young Greek girl engaged to be married to Mandras (Christian Bale). I had questions about the depth of their love from the start, but their future was torn apart when Italy invaded Greece, and Mandras went off to fight. After German intervention, Greece is conquered and the island Pelagia lives on comes under Italian occupation, during which Pelagia meets and begins to fall in love with Captain Corelli (Nicholas Cage.) This, of course, was a dilemma that came to many young women in occupied lands. As they got to know their occupiers, they started to see them not as the enemy but as real people, and sometimes fell in love - often to the disapproval of their neighbours. I just finished reading an interesting book about the German occupation of Britain's Channel Islands in which this was a major issue. Once Mandras returns to the island, Pelagia is torn between them.

The second background issue is the Italian occupation itself, which I thought was quite realistically portrayed. First was the contempt with which the island treated their Italian occupiers. Greece defeated Italy (quite true from a historical perspective) and was really conquered by the Germans. The refusal of the town to surrender to the Italians and instead to insist on surrendering to a German officer struck me as something that could well have happened (and was quite funny in fact. I loved the line, "we would rather surrender to this German's dog than to you Italians.") The portrayal of the Italian troops also struck me as believable. The Italian Army was never enamoured of their German ally, and never enthusiastic about fighting with them. Although Hitler and Mussolini were close friends, their soldiers tended to treat each other with contempt. Here, the Italians are more interested in singing than fighting (which the German troops on the island simply can't understand,) and are ecstatic when Italy makes peace and withdraws from the war - until they discover that this may well make them prisoners of the Germans. It was all quite well done, I thought.

It falters a bit at the end with an all too predictable finish, but still deserves praise.

7/10

Unlike many, I have not read the book and so I watched this purely as a film in its own right. I'm not especially keen on romance dramas, and I expected this to be a bit slushy and/or operatic so I was rather hesitant about going to see it in the first place...

But I'm glad I did, because it was good. Beautiful, "feel good" scenery and with a light touch of humour that made it rather more endearing than a straight drama would have been. The romance was gentle, inoffensive and sufficiently interwoven with enough "proper" story-telling to keep my interest, and the score was not too obtrusively operatic.

Overall, the film takes a satisfying circular route from start to finish, inducing a range of emotions as it progresses. It's about 2 hours long, but I didn't find myself fidgeting or looking at my watch once - and that's quite a feat for me!! Very enjoyable.

I have to admit that I approached this movie with a sense of expectation and dread. Louis de Berniere's bestselling novel is one of my favourites and anyone who has read it will realise that there is no way in hell that any screen adaptation can be 100% faithful.

All the way through I found myself convincing myself that the movie was unsuccessful, and had stripped the book's plot back so far as to render it redundant. The ending, however, is much better than that in the novel, and I could not stop thinking about the movie afterwards. Still, the plusses (John Toll's magnificent cinematography, Stephen Warbeck's great score, etc) I felt did not outweigh my initial negatives (Cage's miscasting, a heavily diluted script).

But, two days later, I was queuing again to see Corelli, and although not perfect, I have to admit now that the movie is the best anyone could have expected. Cage is actually brilliant in a role that even de Berniere was concerned was not a fully rounded character: his carefree spirit which gives way to shattered remorse is spot on, and complements the superb double act of Penelope Cruz and John Hurt perfectly. David Morrissey is quietly effective as Weber, the Nazi officer trying to reconcile his feelings for his newfound Italian friends and his inbred superiority complex to those around him. And the fine Greco-Italian supporting cast bring de Berniere's sundrenched world of Cepholonia dazzlingly alive.

On leaving the cinema second time around, I finally let go my passion for the novel which prevented me from fully appreciating the story of WW2 Cepholonia in cinematic terms. My hat goes off to John Madden who, despite the almost expected critical drubbing he is receiving from the British critics (any director who has had a major success like Shakespeare in Love behind them is always a target for these moaning ninnies!),has managed to transfer a terrifically difficult book to the big screen with such heart, verve and humanity (the core virtues of the novel, in fact) that he has created another classic love story that will probably only be fully appreciated when the dust has settled a few years from now.

If you are a fan of the book, like me, it's hard, but try not to make the same mistake on your initial viewing. Try to erase the book from your mind for two hours, bathe yourself in the glorious Mediterranean atmosphere, and discover Corelli, Pelagia, Mandras, Dr Iannis, as if for the first time (pretend you're watching something made from an original screenplay), and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

In fact, you'll be eagerly waiting to own your own copy of this delightful movie on video or DVD.

8/10

After reading the book thought I would give the film a watch. As with any book adaptation the story is slightly changed and big chunks are missing, are they key parts yes. The film doesn't flow as well and you find yourself not very interested in some of the key players in the book. But I never wanted to stop the film which I think is key, it has something about it which keeps you glued. Perhaps the back drop.