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Story
Italy and Germany in 1941 mercilessly conquers the smaller and weaker nation of Greece. An Italian artillery garrison is stationed on one of the remote Greek Islands. An Italian officer called Captain Corelli has the manner of having a friendly co-existence with the Greek people. He also takes part in Greek cultural activities such as the local music festivals and also courts the daughter of a Greek doctor. In 1943 Italy has surrendered to the Allied forces and has also changed sides during the Great War. This has forced Captain Corelli to defend this Greek island against the impending German invasion.
Review
The movie makes a somewhat slow start and in the beginning gives the impression that it is about the Italian occupation of Greece during the World War 2. However it picks up and is quite enjoyable to watch for its entire length of just over 2 hours. There are two reasons for this.
The movie shows a love triangle that is interesting and strikes us as completely believable as everyone knows that this happened in different places which were under occupation. Pelagia is played by Penelope Cruz. She is a youthful Greek girl who is engaged to Mandras played by Christian Bale. Actually there are questions about their depth of involvement and love right from the start; however their future together gets completely torn apart when Greece is invaded by Italy. This is because Mandras goes off to fight against the Italians. After the German intervention, the nation of Greece is conquered and the island where Pelagia lives comes under the Italian occupation. During all these developments, Pelagia meets Captain Corelli and starts to fall in love with him. Captain Corelli is played by Nicolas Cage. This dilemma was faced by many young ladies in the occupied territories. Once the locals started to know the invaders, they began to see them as real people and not as an enemy. And in some of these cases love occurred. This most often was to the disapproval of the neighbors. So when Mandras returns back to the islands, she gets torn between the two men.
Another topic discussed in the background is the Italian occupation of Greece. This is actually portrayed and done quite realistically. In the beginning the contempt the Italian invaders have to face from the locals is displayed. Later Greece actually defeated Italy which is quite true from the historical point of view. Greece actually was conquered by Germans. It is shown that the small town refused to surrender to the Italians and demanded to surrender to some German officer. It is something which might have actually happened everyone suspects. This is actually quite ridiculous and then there is the line which goes something like we might surrender to the German dog but not the Italians. The realistic portrayal of Italian soldiers is also quite believable. It is a well known fact that the Italian army was never too keen about fighting with their German allies. Mussolini and Hitler were close friends however; their soldiers treated each other with total contempt. In the movie however the Italians are focused more on singing instead of fighting. This is something understandable to the German troops on the Greek island. The Italian soldiers are quite happy when Italy makes peace and goes out of the war. This is so until they find out that this is going to only make them prisoners to Germans. All this is well shot in the movie. The climax of the movie is a little predictable but still the film deserves some praise as it is well made.
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