Captain Corelli's Mandolin
**1/2
Cinema
Releases - May 4, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 127
minutes. Directed by John Madden. Written by Shawn Slovo; from the novel
by Louis de Bernieres. Starring Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz, John Hurt, Christian
Bale, David Morrissey.
In 1940, members of the Italian army were sent
to occupy the captured Greek island of Cephalonia. There was resentment at
first, but eventually acceptance; the Italians were fairly easy-going, didn't
like the situation any more than the Greeks, and the two sides managed to
co-exist in relative harmony, united by mistrust of the Nazis. Although they
were supposed to be enemies, it is said that wartime friendships and even
romances between the soldiers and the local girls occurred here and
there.
I would love to know what kind of emotions were
running through those who took part in the romances, and "Captain Corelli's
Mandolin" doesn't help me much. Based on a Louis de Bernieres bestseller
that I have not read, the film is a love story between an Italian captain
(Nicolas Cage) and a young beauty (Penelope Cruz) whose fiancé is
away at war. The movie tells us that they fall in love, but we have no reason
to believe it -- they're arguing one minute, and reciting poetic declarations
to each other the next.
I know that movie characters don't need much to
fall in love. A couple of sentences or glimmers demonstrating affection is
usually considered enough to do the trick. "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" gives
us even less than that -- for the first act Cruz is constantly shouting at
Cage with genuine resentment, and then suddenly one night at a village dance
she looks at him like she's had some burning desire all along. Next thing
you know they're ripping each other's clothes off in the forest and breathlessly
planning a love affair.
Give me a break. The filmmakers should not expect
us to care about emotions that come out of thin air, and in settling for
such an uninspired raison d'etre, they've blown a good
opportunity.
There are nice touches. The film is well made,
with gorgeous location photography, and the performances are so good that
even Cruz, an actress who has in the past aggravated me like fingernails
on a blackboard, manages to seem tender and sympathetic. Criticism of Cage's
imperfect Italian accent is unfair, because it's good enough, and his character
is a pleasing one to watch -- as witty and frolicking as possible without
being unprofessional, and with cute eccentricities like playing the mandolin
and commanding his men to hum Puccini.
There are also scenes of stupidity, as when Cage
emerges the sole survivor of a firing squad after receiving injuries to all
his major organs. Nor was I crazy about some of the advice given by the character
of Cruz's father, played by John Hurt; he is a quiet man who occasionally
utters things like "Love is the feeling you have when being in love has faded"
-- contrived maxims the writers thought sounded wise but don't seem to have
written from experience.
The bottom line, though, is that the love story
had so much potential, and the filmmakers have refused to probe it. So many
people rave about the book that it must have something to it. As for the
movie, what's the point?
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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