La marche triomphale

....the hero says ."An army in the service of whores and fags,more like!"

Bellochio's main merit was to treat the subject (military service in Italy but at the time ,before most the European armies became professional,it had an international feel) seriously.In Italy or in France,coarse comedy was rampant:France had the Charlots and their dismal Bidasses (=squaddies) farces and Italy had Edwige Fenech cast as a doctor in the barracks.

All that concerns the barracks atmosphere ,the stupid orders, the mind-destroying drill ,the humiliations is successful.Patrick Dewaere appears as a blasé cynical officer.

On the other hand,all that concerns officer Franco Nero's private life with wife Miou-Miou -whom he treats like dirt-is less convincing,looking like a poor man's "Reflection in a golden eye" .

A courageous movie,however.

From the director who made one of the finest of Italian films, ' Fists in the Pocket ' I found this mid-1970's film uninvolving. It starts with a long sequence of a young soldier being bullied to the state of exhaustion, and the same soldier continues getting bullied. As a condemnation of the military it is arguably well observed, and it is always good to see Franco Nero performing well as one of the army leaders. His growling, handsome face is always good to watch and he is the stand out performance in this ( for me ) rather uninvolving film of repeated macho bad behaviour. Women too in this film are equally abused so it is not only one sided. One particular heterosexual sex scene I found unpleasant, and sometimes I sensed a repressed homosexuality but so vague as to be negligible. No spoilers to the ending, but I had by that time become rather bored with the collective and in the main bullying straight men enjoying their power.

Marco Bellocchio's trenchant VICTORY MARCH is about the madness of military life and its children's power games. It deals with the psychological ravishing of a sensitive and literate young man during the first year in his service in the Italian army. He is abused and shoved about by officers and non-commissioned personnel, and when he has the audacity to become a good soldier, he is shunned by the other trainees. The soldier, Passeri, is played by the talented Michele Placido, who was the youngest brother in THREE BROTHERS and the teacher in FOREVER MARY, both made after this film. Much of the movie treats Passeri's relationship with a strict and possibly psychotic young officer (Franco Nero) and his sluttish young wife, played by French actress Miou-Miou. The movie delves into the relationship between power and sexuality, has some scenes that are rather graphic. But it is another example of Bellocchio's exhilarating talent which can be both savage and humane, satiric and dramatic, and most certainly always fascinating.