QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

The year is 1918 and WW1 is still looming large. Nearly all young Italian men have been drafted into the conflict. Yet not all possess the nationalism and the conviction required from them. A few have taken extreme measures: they have self-harmed in order to avoid the mandatory conscription. A shot on the foot, a blind eye or even a limb amputation are amongst the voluntary injuries.

Army doctors Stefano (Gabriel Montesi) and Giulio (Alessandro Borghi) have the morally and ethically challenging task of deciding which patients should stay under hospital care, which ones should be sent home, which ones should go back to the battlefield, and which ones should face a military court. Dodging war is not perceived as a noble gesture, but instead one of profound selfishness: “you allow someone else to die in your place”, an officer puts succinctly. The sentence for “conspiracy, desertion and self-inflicted mutilations” is a summary execution by firing squad in front of the hospital. Such horrific fate should serve as a deterrent for other men considering such action.

Stefano is very firm in his positions. He does not hesitate to send barely functional in-patients back onto the battlefield. Giulio impersonates an equally rigorous persona, yet secretly helps patients to evade the military service. He offers to infect a hapless man with the clap (gonorrhoea) in order to help him, while also warning him that the disease could him his sight. The desperation is shut that he agrees to take the toxic injection. Nurse Anna (Federica Rosellini) is the third protagonist. The intelligent woman received the highest possible score in her exams, but a deeply sexist society prevented her from advancing in her medical career, and becoming a fully-fledged doctor. She is some sort of a sounding board for Giulio, who remains deeply troubled by his feelings of empathy, and the knowledge that his actions could lead to a severe punishment.

Battlefield is a mess of a movie. The script is so severely wounded and disfigured that it’s almost incomprehensible. The relationship between Anna and the two doctors is very confusing. There is a suggestion that she knew them before; it’s never entirely clear where her allegiances lie, and whether her morals prevail above her professional duties. This is not intentional ambiguity, but poor character development instead. Perhaps even more seriously, the central topic inexplicably and abruptly changes roughly halfway through the 104-minute drama. Suddenly Stefano forgets about the self-harmers and devotes his attention to the impending Spanish flu (described then as “the bacillus”). I still can’t decide whether this is a movie about desertion or one about the deadly 20th century pandemic. The ending too is disjointed, with references to an elusive researcher, some black moss, and an inexplicable gesture of self-harm.

It isn’t just the script that’s awful. Except perhaps for the two males leads, the acting is egregious. The awareness of the camera amongst actors and extras is such that they almost break the fourth wall while robotically delivering their lines on cue. The pain and suffering of the patients is downright farcical. In some cases, this could be justified by the fact that some of these patients are indeed feigning or at least exaggerating their illness. The problem is that these poor performances are universal. The make-up and costumes are on a similar level. The clothes are squeaky clean, and neatly ironed, entirely incompatible with the precarious war environment. The wounds look like chocolate smudge, and I bet the blood tastes of raspberry coulis. A film so poorly staged that it’s impossible to engage.

Campo di Battaglia just premiered in the Official Competition of the 81st Venice International Film Festival.