An interesting novel totally screwed...........................................

Rating: 5/10 (22 November 2008)

"Kefalonia,Greece,1940".We know that because it's just been on the screen.In case we think it's Kefalonia,Mississippi,presumably.Then to make sure we are on message a Greek dance starts up.To allay any lingering doubts,another ten minutes into screen time and there's another Greek dance.OK,thank you,we got it the first time. Unfortunately all this desire to impose ethnicity is thwarted by the appearance of the very English Mr John Hurt as the wise doctor/philosopher Iannis and the very Spanish Miss Penelope Cruz as his daughter Pelagia. Mr Hurt has a grey walrus moustache and disconcertingly black hair. He doesn't speak so much as spout wise doctor/philosopher stuff so you just know he is really really wise and really really loves his daughter in a wise fatherly way.She becomes engaged to Mandras a simple fisherman after he throws her into the sea.Then war comes and her simple fisherman goes off to fight the Hun.Irrepressible child of nature that she is,Pelagia skips gaily along the footpaths surrounding her village.The island is invaded by the Italian army with only one thing on their minds singing extracts from Puccini and playing various stringed instruments. Well there is one other thing on their minds as exemplified by that dratted handsome Capt Corelli when we first see him looking in his dress uniform as if he would be happier piloting Thunderbird 3.On spotting Pelagia in the crowd as they march through town to accept the surrrender he orders his men to salute "Bella bambina at 2 'o clock" thus identifying himself as a dog and a sexist at once.A stereotypical Italian then. Mr Nicholas Cage plays Capt Corelli in a way that clearly pleases him. He and child of nature fall in love which Miss Cruz valiantly tries to depict,her brow furrowing with effort from time to time.Wise doctor/philosopher Iannis thinks no good will come of it.The Italians surrender as soon as is decently possible leaving the dour humourless Germans to fight alone with entirely foreseeable results. Not to be confused in any way with the well - received novel of the same title,"Captain Corelli's Mandolin" sets cliché upon cliché and devil take the hindmost.It tries for the sweep of a David Lean but lacks the absolute control of his subject that categorised his work. Should American viewers wonder why Europe is still so bedevilled a continent then they can rest assured that the Greeks still hate the Germans,the Germans hate the Italians and the English hate everybody. Peace - to Europeans - is merely a continuation of war by other means.