In that “Battlefield” there are no winners: an interview with Gianni Amelio

There Great War told by the master Gianni Amelio offers an unprecedented scenario, that of a military hospital, the “Battlefield” which gives the film its title. Two friends, two doctors, magnificently played by Alexander Borghi (Julius) and Gabriel Montesi (Stefano). The first one, as a professional duty requires, does everything to save the wounded and get them back on their feet so they can return to the trenches. The second one suffers the drama and the incongruity of saving them to send them back to fight and face certain death. This is the one the conflict within the conflict. And, as if that were not enough, just before “the Piave fell silent and the waves calmed down”, the Spanish flu pandemic broke out.

Tonight at 8pm, at the Citrigno cinema in Cosenza, there will be a special presentation of “Campo di Battaglia” in the presence of the director Gianni Amelio who will meet the audience in the theater and, at the end of the screening, will hold a debate on the film. The evening event is organized by Giuseppe Citrigno, President of Anec Calabria and administrator of Cgc Sale cinematografiche, and will launch the eleventh edition of the festival «La Primavera del Cinema italiano – Premio Federico II», in Cosenza until September 28.

We met Gianni Amelio, from Catanzaro in Calabria, who will also be in his hometown and in Messina. And before starting the interview he wanted to underline his strong bond with Southern Italy. In particular with Cosenza, where he received an honorary degree; with Messina, the city where he studied at university, in the Faculty of Philosophy; with his native Catanzaro where he began to frequent the cinemas.
There are many battlefields that we encounter in his film, perhaps some more harrowing than the trenches…
«The real battlefield was the military hospitalwhere hundreds of wounded arrived that doctors had to heal and then send them back to the front. And so you can understand how some doctors had scruples in managing this situation, which was in fact a prolongation of the war. Doctors try to do everything they can to save the lives of soldiers. But the contradiction is enormous! I save your life, but I send you back to fight. So there is an important character in the film who tries to approach this enormous problem of healing soldiers in a different way. He is one of the two friends who are the protagonists of the film, Julius. And he reacts in a much more dramatic way, bordering on cruelty, but in the name of life, because he knows that war sows death. So, it’s a film where there are no good and bad guys: Stephen he behaves according to what duty imposes on him, and Giulio intervenes on the soldiers, in the name of a possible continuity of life. Perhaps with the wrong method, but with all the good will in the world. And in the middle there is a female figure, Annavery important, that being a woman, she could not aspire to a medical degree at the time. Even though she was very good, as a line in the film says: “You don’t give top marks to a woman”. So, once again, women are deprived of their freedom to express themselves. She would be a magnificent doctor. In reality, she has to “settle” for being a nurse. This is the story. Then there are many things inside. There is also an Italy that is not yet a homeland. And where the soldiers can’t understand each other because each one speaks his own dialect. There are very young boys, almost impossible to imagine inside a trench.”

An Unseen Glimpse of the Great War. Without winners or losers, without heroes to raise to the altars, without epic scenes of bloody battles. With a load of painful masks that face the ghosts of their fears, their ideas, their passions…
«Yes, the so-called Great War was very particular because it took place practically hand to hand. Between soldiers who looked each other in the face. It was a war that was more like a slaughterhouse. Wars are all unjust. They only bring death. And politics should intervene so that they do not break out. Because wars, then, we know that they come for reasons that go beyond the needs of ordinary people. These are only victims who suffer the decisions from above, from the power that calls for more and more power. A terrible logic because then all the victims are innocent, both civilians and military.19-20 year old boys, not even trained, who are thrown from the South to the North, without there being a reason that concerns them, that can improve their life. They are cannon fodder used so that the great ones of the world can divide up power. As it happens today. And the current wars are not very far from us, because we feel them and we sense them and the victims make us more than pity.. I mean, it is understandable why a Russian mother does not want her son to go and fight in Ukraine because it is the logic of a dictator who wants another country to be invaded to expand his territories.”
Spanish and Covid 19… How difficult was it to delve into the narrative of a pandemic that happened a century ago without bringing with you the fresh experience lived first-hand?
«No, there was no difficulty. When you make a film or write a book you tell the facts in the most exciting way possible.. So that the emotion reaches the viewer or reader. I studied a lot, I watched documentaries that told both the war and the Spanish flu. Everything I said is true. Of course, with the figures of the soldiers slightly romanticized. The two doctors also really existed, just as it is a reality that in the last year of the world war the epidemic broke out which had all the time to manifest itself and develop, especially among the soldiers, because the physical and hygienic conditions in which they lived were terrible».