The Good Enemy

Rating: 5/10 (30 November 2014)

Regarding the Axis powers of WWII, we have always been willing to cut the Italians a big old break. The Japanese pulled a sneak attack on us at Pearl Harbor, and the Germans were responsible for the holocaust, but we like to think that the Italians were basically good people who just got carried away by Mussolini's speeches. And so, an actual incident during the war, when the Italians teamed up with the Greeks to fight against their former allies, the Germans, fits right in with our disposition to grant the Italians favorable treatment.
In the movie, the Italian soldiers that occupy a Greek island have not seen any real action, but that is not surprising, because I have never seen an Italian soldier kill an American in a World War II movie. Moreover, they don't seem to care about the war. They just want to sing opera. Isn't that nice? The Greeks also seem to like the Italians better. Nobody seems to have a problem with the fact that Palagia is obviously in love with an Italian officer, Captain Corelli, and even has sex with him; but another girl, who just gives a German officer a friendly kiss on the cheek, is hanged by the Greeks for being a traitor.
Reality or no reality, the decision by the Italians to fight with the Greeks against the Germans rather than simply handing over their arms when Mussolini surrenders turns out to be a big mistake, because except for Corelli, they are all slaughtered by the Germans for being traitors. But then, that only makes us like the Italians even more.