Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93485 in DVD

Customer Reviews

the amazon review has NO credibility. did they even watch it?
One of my top 5 favorite movies of all time. So I'm sorry but I think the amazon reviewer above was asleep when he saw it. Literally.
I go back to this movie again and again and again. It's enchanting, moving, and carries within it an eternal sense of humanity and what all our lives are about- trials, tribulations, free-spirited joy, and most importantly the feeling that we have learned and continue to learn throughout it all what living and being human is all about.
it's simple, wonderful, and definitely full of the Italian passion for life, lived to its fullest whatever the circumstances.
So Amazon reviewer, I challenge you to watch this movie once a year for the rest of your years and to see how well it stands the test of time. I guarantee you it will and each new viewing will bring more enjoyment and appreciation than the last. enjoy!

"Dedicated to all those who are running away"
This film story is culturally valuable because of the ways in which it contradicts itself. The film's credits say that it is, "Dedicated to all those who are running away." A line of dialogue reinforces this idea. Lorusso says, "In times like these, escape is the only way. To live and keep dreaming." And yet at the end of the film, Antonio, Lorusso and the Sergeant are all together again on the Greek island that they had wanted to escape so badly at the story's start. They escaped the war by accident. They escaped the reality of their desertion periodically with drugs, sex and games. But the film asserts that once a person allows a culture, a place, or a people to move them, there is no escaping it. Once a person finds beauty within a situation and makes a home out of it, the good feelings and ideals created in that context are forever within them. When Lorusso returns to the island many years after, he says of Italy, "They didn't let us change anything." His life on the island had given him an ideal for a compassionate existence, where people can grow and change, and when he didn't feel capable of achieving that in war-torn Italy, he "escaped" once again to the island where he had been happy.
The beauty of this story shines through because of its immense craftsmanship. The story would not have been so moving had the compassionate existence not been created by unlikely people in an unlikely place. The soldiers, the Sergeant admits early on, are a "platoon of misfits": a Bacchus-like Russian, a frequent deserter who wants to get back to his pregnant wife, a pair of goat-herding brothers from the mountains, a weak and feminine but ever-loyal Antonio, a man in love with Lorusso, and a man in love with his donkey. They are anything but soldierly, and their nationalistic feelings, if they ever had any, quickly wane. "I feel abandoned," one of the men comments. Lorusso says, "They left us here and here we'll stay." Staying on the island, early in the story, doesn't seem a very welcome proposition since "Greece is the Tomb of Italians" is written on the wall of the town. But the audience learns, as the characters do, that the townspeople are not only harmless but welcoming and warm. Beautiful cinematography and music ease the audience into a comfortable life on the Greek island along with the soldiers; their senses are our senses, their feelings our feelings, because the elements of film are so carefully crafted. The Sergeant's statement about the "poets, philosophers, warriors, and goddesses" from which they are all descended sets the tone for the film. Antonio recognizes the poet within himself, Vasilissa the goddess. The Sergeant is clearly a philosopher and Lorusso learns to project his warrior-like tendencies towards compassionate means, such as protecting his friends. The story, by allowing us to feel and witness such growth within such ordinarily quirky and believable characters, suggests that such a compassionate existence is available for everyone. The film is dedicated to the audience, who is allowed to escape within its beauty for a while, and come out knowing a little better what human compassion is capable of.

An oasis in the middle of the War!
If there is an essential feature in the cinematography of this famed director is the memory `s employment to recreate these brief moments of happiness the life gives us, even in the sad and wildest moments.

In 1941, some Italian soldiers will remain stranded in a paradisiacal island which will work out as an adequate oasis to partake in la dolce vita.

A tongue in the cheek film that will reconcile us with those pleasant and funny instants of perpetual remembrances as only the Italian filmmakers are capable to make it.

A film to endure our memory, refreshing and visually arresting. A superb artistic triumph.