Admirable for its uncompromising treatment of real-life horror, Battleground (Campo di battaglia) is a stark story told in two distinct parts, whose dominant colors are the white of hospitals and the black of corpses.
Directed by Gianni Amelio (Lord of the Ants) and produced by Marco Bellocchio, among others, it is a bleak tale of darkness that is part anti-war film, part lament for the victims — military and civilian, old and young — of the devastating Spanish flu epidemic that followed the war. The film’s chilling premises and explicit horror will have a hard time attracting audiences outside of festivals like Venice, where the film is bowing in competition and could win prizes for its rigor.
Unlike recent shocking war dramas like 1917 and All Quiet on the Western Front, Battleground doesn’t purport to “show the true face of World War I” in gory scenes of mortal combat. The battleground of the title is a sprawling military hospital, presumably in the north of Italy, where severely wounded Italian soldiers are taken for treatment. Gradually it is seen that some of these men, who come from the poorest regions of Italy, have inflicted their own wounds deliberately in hopes of being discharged from the army.
The hospital appears greatly understaffed, given that only three doctors – all friends at university – are introduced in the film. Stefano (Gabriel Montesi) is from a patrician family and his father is a powerful political force; his quiet, idealistic friend Giulio (Alessandro Borghi, Suburra, On My Skin) is a surgeon who can’t stand the sight of blood; and Anna (Francesca Rosellini), who was a brilliant and determined student in med school but was held back because she was a woman, is now a tireless volunteer for the Red Cross.
This small team of friends is on intimate terms, yet highly conflictual. As the chief medical officer, Stefano holds the power, and he is blindly, cruelly patriotic. As he makes his rounds, he calls out the soldiers with self-inflicted wounds who are trying to keep from being sent back to the front at all costs. For Stefano, it is their duty as officers and doctors to patch up the injured and send them back to fight, in a matter of days if possible. The absurdity of this is evident to everyone, but it only seems to make Stefano more furious and authoritarian. He orders any soldier with a self-inflicted wound to be immediately executed for treason and defeatism.
If there is a heroic figure in the film, it is the quiet, ironic Giulio, another incarnation of the many illuminated intellectuals who populate Amelio’s films. An introvert who would rather be doing research than treating patients, he has jettisoned any idea of patriotism in a senseless war that, by 1918, was winding down without victory. Taking pity on the soldiers whose dialect he barely understands, teenage farmhands and laborers from the south whose only desire is to return home to their loved ones, he makes them a terrible proposal. It is different for each one, but involves sacrificing an eye or a limb to get a discharge. These amputations take place at night in an attic room, with only a young, like-minded Red Cross nurse to assist him in the operation.
Despite some initial visual confusion, this nurse is not Anna. Anna is closer to Stefano’s way of thinknig that it is every soldier’s patriotic duty to die for his country, and the working classes are expendable. When she discovers that a poor kid from Naples has faked his injuries thanks to Giulio, she inadvertently gets him executed. Her ideas are deeply shaken by this experience.
The film shifts register in the last half hour as the war draws to a close and the nightmare becomes the Spanish flu, which claimed 650,000 Italian lives before it was over. Giulio and Anna are sent to a military base in the mountains to care for Spanish flu patients, despite no cure being available. The men die in droves before their eyes; their bodies are hauled away and burned in pits. Coming after the strong anti-war scenes that precede it, these gloomy images of human life ending senselessly have a lot less impact, perhaps because the viewer feels as helpless as the researchers, and there is no one to blame.
Borghi stands out with an underplayed and winning performance as the medic with a heart, whose compassion for his fellow men makes him depressed and vulnerable. In the opening shots, he cuts himself while shaving, leaving him with a scar that links him visually to his patients. Later, in the icy tunnels carved into the mountains, he helplessly watches as sick soldiers die in droves, are collected and burned together in pits. “I blaspheme at what I see around me every day,” he writes, finding no consolation in Anna’s supportive presence.
Montesi and Rosellini, who play Stefano and Anna, take longer to accept as representatives of their time. There is a lingering ambiguity in both of them, as they grapple with upholding class and gender ideals that, by the end of the war, already feel outdated. Luan Amelio Ujkaj, the director’s regular cinematographer, stamps the story with a stark look that eliminates most details to highlight faces and injuries. Also distinctive is Franco Piersanti’s score which keeps to itself in the background like a distant moan.
Director: Gianni Amelio
Screenplay: Gianni Amelio, Alberto Taraglio freely inspired by a novel by Carlo Patriarca
Cast: Alessandro Borghi, Gabriel Montesi, Federica Rosellini
Producers: Simone Gattoni, Marco Bellocchio, Beppe Caschetto, Bruno Benetti, Paolo Del Brocco for Rai Cinema
Cinematography: Luan Amelio Ujkaj
Editing: Simona Paggi
Production design: Beatrice Scarpato
Costume design: Luca Costigliolo
Music: Franco Piersanti
Sound: Emanuele Cicconi
Production companies: Kavac Film, IBC Movie, One Art Produzioni in association with Rai Cinema
World Sales: Rai Cinema International Distribution
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition)
In Italian, Italian dialects
103 minutes
