RFalvo69
Posts: 1380
Joined: 7/11/2013 From: Lamezia Terme (Italy) Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Chickenboy quote:
ORIGINAL: RFalvo69 For a seldom seen war in the desert from the Italian point of view, there is "El Alamein: the Line of Fire", a very good Italian movie. It is on Youtube in original language with English subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfSv87ZuJf4&t=1272s Better than Captain Correlli's Mandolin, I hope? God forbids! No. It is a very good Italian movie: grim, cynic and very true to the actual events. I have a book called "Fronte d'Africa: C'Ero Anch'io" ("African Front: I Was There"), sadly never translated in English. It is a great collection (700+ pages) of testimonies, diaries and letters of Italian soldiers that fought in the Western Desert. What hit me was the dignity shown in these tales (*). IMHO the movie used the book as his main reference in recreating the lives of the Italian soldiers just before - and then during - El Alamein. (*) What really hits the reader of the book is following the life of a soldier through his diary from, maybe, his arrival in Africa, to the life in his regiment, the first important battle, to... ...To nothing. The diary ends with his name and a Christian cross. A note tells how the document was preserved by a friend. The last annotation is about how finally they had good food in preparation for the skirmish to follow, and how he feels optimistic about the capabilities of his brothers in arms. And then... In war, death doesn't follow "story arcs": the picture goes away all of sudden and that's it. Many a diary in the book ends like that.
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"Yes darling, I served in the Navy for eight years. I was a cook..." "Oh dad... so you were a God-damned cook?" (My 10 years old daughter after watching "The Hunt for Red October")
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