Bella bambina at two o'clock!

Rating: 10/10 (17 September 2007)

I didn't read the book, so I didn't have expectations either way when I watched this movie. I bought the DVD as "previously viewed" because I like Nicolas Cage. I loved the movie myself, for several reasons. I'm an incurable romantic, so I loved the romance. I knew that the romance between Pelagia, (Penelope Cruz), and Madras, (Christian Bale), was doomed from the start, for the same reason stated by her father, (John Hurt). He just wasn't her intellectual equal. They would never have had a happy marriage. Plus, he demonstrated that he took her love for granted by not getting a literate friend to answer her letters. What an idiot! He just didn't deserve her. It's no wonder that she stopped loving him. It's also no wonder that, in spite of herself, she fell in love with a cultured, literate, music loving man like Captain Corelli, (Nicolas Cage). I also love location movies with majestic scenery. It's one of the things that make The Great Escape such a great movie. I'm also a military history buff, especially WWII history. I love it when I learn something new about WWII from a movie. That's another thing this movie has in common with TGE. It's reasonably historically accurate, (see the Wikipedia articles "Axis occupation of Greece in World War II" in the section "Nazi atrocities" and "Kefalonia" in the section "World War II"). It's a historical fact that the average Italian civilian or soldier had no great love for either Mussolini or Fascism. It's also a historical fact that the Nazis knew this, and so they didn't have much respect for the Italians. However, I hadn't known about how the Germans turned on the Italians like rabid dogs after Italy surrendered to the Allies. That said, it came as no surprise when it happened in the movie. It also didn't surprise me that Captain Weber, (David Morrissey), was sickened by the atrocity. It's another historical fact that the majority of German soldiers and sailors, both officers and enlisted men, weren't Nazis, and had no great love for those who were. With a few exceptions, most of the atrocities carried out by the German military were done by the SS, the concentration camp guards, or by special groups that were made up entirely of fanatical Nazis. Never forget that the German military was organized on the Prussian model, which emphasized strict obedience to superiors, and for officers, rigid adherence to their oaths. Which is why Hitler had the German officer corps swear an oath of personal allegiance to him after he came to power. To those who couldn't understand why the partisans hung the woman who showed affection to the German officer and didn't do the same to Pelagia, it was BECAUSE the woman showed affection to a German, and Pelagia fell in love with an Italian, who fought to resist the Germans in the end. Finally, to those who knock this movie because it's different from the book, SO WHAT? When is a movie adaptation EVER totally faithful to the book it's based on? Also I read in someone else's post that the author finally admitted that he didn't do enough research and got his facts wrong in his portrayal of the partisans. So, all in all these are the reasons I LOVE this movie, and I urge anyone who either hasn't read the book, or realizes that the movie isn't going to be a carbon copy of it, or has an interest in WWII history, or is an incurable romantic like me, to see this movie. 10/10