Un pilota ritorna (1942)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Roberto Rossellini

Writers:

Michelangelo Antonioni (screenplay)
Ugo Betti (dialogue)

Release Date:

8 April 1942 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

A young Italian pilot is interned in a British prison camp after his plane is shot down during the war against Greece...

Plot Keywords:

Escape | Pilot | Greece | Shooting Down | 1940s

Cast

Massimo Girotti	...	Il tenente Gino Rossati
Michela Belmonte	...	Anna
Gaetano Masier	...	Il tenente Trisotti
Elvira Betrone	...	La signora Rossati, madre di Gino
Nino Brondello	...	Il tenente Vittali
Piero Lulli	...	De Santis
Giovanni Valdambrini	...	Il medico, padre di Anna
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Piero Palermini	...	Un giovane ufficiale inglese
Jole Tinta	...	La madre del bimbo ammalato

Also Known As:

A Pilot Returns (International: English title)

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Alleanza Cinematografica Italiana (A.C.I.)

Trivia:

The film was made with the participation of the officers of the Italian air force.

Proto-Neorealist Cinema

For the first time I've seen a film by Roberto Rossellini prior to his Neorealist classics, based on a story by il Duce's son, Vittorio Mussolini (credited with the anagram Tito Silvio Mursino). So by its date and origin it may be labeled a "Fascist film", but not surprisingly Rossellini avoids any overt reference to or exaltation of the regime, from a screenplay co-written with Michelangelo Antonioni, among others. At first I thought I was going to see a sort of Italian "Top Gun" as the movie takes around 20 minutes describing the activities of Italian pilots, but soon the airplane of the title hero (Massimo Girotti, the star of Visconti's "Ossessione") is knocked down and he is imprisoned by the British officers. Suddenly the hunter becomes the hunted, and Rossellini elaborates on his belief that personal stories are illustrations of history and politics: the pilot is nothing but a puppet of his country's foreign policy. Rossellini then describes the state of the prisoners, as they endure cold, hunger and disease, and are taken by the British from an old farm to a port in the Mediterranean, while bombs are dropped over roads, fields and bridges, to a patriotic ending (that is revealed by the title). Rossellini tells this story in 85 minutes, with early examples of what Bazin would describe as "image fact": long takes, where the camera moves (including a 360° turn) not to advance the story, but to show the environment, the conditions where the characters interact. Rossellini narrates fast and synthesizes the fable, though his economy was not determined --as in "Romà, citta aperta"-- by the surrounding events (war), showing the development of a style that would grow during the Neorealist movement