Well worth it

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2002)

Lots of criticism have been heaped upon Captain Corelli's Mandolin. After having seen it myself, I'm rather positive myself about the movie. The beginning was rather slow and a little bit too sweet - the blooming romance between Pelagia and Mandras didn't convince me.
After history comes booming in, the tone of the movie changes dramatically. First of all, as an historian I have to give a lot of kudo's on the movie makers themselves for the virtually flawless depiction of WW2 Italian soldiers at war, and the same goes for the depiction of 1944 German soldiers, correctly dressed with mixed European and Afrika Korps uniforms. The researchers finally have done a very fine job on getting the uniforms and military settings right, unlike American "war" horror movies like The Guns from Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, where terrible mistakes in the composition of German military uniforms regularly spoil my appetite.

A frequent criticism I've picked up is about the overacting of Nicholas Cage c.s. in their Italian soldiers' roles, with their opera singing and so on. I have to counter this strongly. As a Latin myself with ample knowledge of the Italian participation in WW2, I state that Italian soldiers often behaved like that, and not only them. For those interested, I strongly recommend the reading of all six parts of Spike Milligan's wartime memories, to see that peacetime overacting very often equates to wartime normal acting. I was sorry that Nicholas Cage, or Nicholas Coppola as he is in fact called, didn't work more on his Italian and retained his American twang throughout the movie, but whatever. Specially as the movie went on, he became more and more convincing as the theatrical artillery captain in the royal Italian army. And as for the actual historical framework depicted in the movie, I was fairly satisfied. I even noticed that history is in fact more accurately depicted in the movie than in the book!
About the storyline itself. Cage was a little bit "less himself", kind of subdued, very uncommon for him as an actor. John Hurt was rather convincing, as were most of the cast, but Penelope Cruz dissappointed me. Specially with the still unfaded Irene Papas at her side (Zorba the Greek), I noticed how plain she acted. The producers should have searched for a second Irene Papas and casted her as Pelagia!!!! If we talk about a flaw in the movie, it was her plain acting and her failure to react chemically with the Mandras character.
But on the whole, once the "glorious" Italian army, which surely earned our sympathy as poor blokes caught between a rock and a hard place, swaggered into Cephalonia, the movie gathers momentum, and doesn't lose it anymore.