Reviews & Ratings for
The Great War More at IMDbPro »La grande guerra (original title)

23 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
one of the best movies ever, 4 June 2002

Author: roberto dandi from Rome, Italy

Monicelli is another genius and poet of the Italian cinema. We can only bless him for the long list of masterpieces he created for all of us: I soliti ignoti, Guardie e ladri, L'armata Brancaleone and of course La Grande Guerra. Two cowards, one from Rome (Sordi) the other from Lombardy (Gassman) try to save their lives during one of the most tragic moments (for Italy) of the WWI (the defense on the river Piave). While in some parts the film is truly a blame against the horrors of war, in other parts is somehow patriotic. Even the tragic final changes the protagonists into heroes, but really a strange kind of heroes, very different from the American icon (muscles and bravery). In conclusion, you will find a lot of fun but also thoughtful moments. I beg everyone who read this message to see this movies, it's truly one of the best ever.

14 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
An Italian comic masterpiece, 14 October 2005

Author: Max_cinefilo89 from Italy

I've only seen it twice, and it's already one of my favorite Italian movies of all time.Directed by legendary Mario Monicelli, this excellent comedy is set during WWI, when the Italians had to defend the river Piave from the Austrians.Two of the Italian soldiers happen to be really lazy cowards:Giovanni Busacca(Vittorio Gassman) from Milan and Oreste Jacovacci(Alberto Sordi) from Rome.They would rather spend their time at home with the mates and the ladies instead of fighting for their country.The only fights they have are with each other, both insulting the other one with their particular accents and dialects (you probably have to be Italian yourself to really appreciate most of the gags). The most interesting thing is perhaps how the two actors handle their roles: Sordi is very calm, controlled and "normal", while Gassman just can't stop being nervous, shouting and gesticulating all the time.

Just like La Vita è Bella, this movie's purpose is to blame the horrors of war as well as making you laugh as much as you can.

For those who like Italian cinema, La Grande Guerra is a must-see.

8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Funny and bitter, as Italian comedies often are, 18 July 2009

Author: GrandeMarguerite from Lille, France

Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1959, this film deserves more attention from movie lovers all around the world. Some critics regard "The Great War" as Monicelli's finest work - and they might be right. Set in Northern Italy during World War I, of course the film is definitely antiwar. As Monicelli once said in an interview : "I wanted to show things as they were -- as usual, badly conducted and led, and no one wanting to fight, or knowing what they were fighting for." It is history from the point of view of the humble people, with a good deal of irony. Starting as a light comedy, "The Great War" ends on a very poignant note, while it doesn't hide any of the horrors of trench warfare.

To me, Mario Monicelli and Dino Risi were the masters of Italian (tragi)comedy back in the 50s and 60s. Their best films (like this one) offer a combination of levity, social criticism and black comedy which is extremely appealing and unique. That said, Monicelli and Risi would never have done such great films without great actors. Here, Gassman and Sordi are a wonderful pair as two army mates caught in a conflict they don't really care about. The film also features beauty queen Silvana Mangano in a small but important part as Gassman's love interest.

A classic, unmissable.

8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
the war as it is, 6 May 1999
Author: Lorenzo Frittelli

La Grande guerra is a real lucid vision of the war that's because the point of view is moved on two characters of the common people with real emotions and feelings, so their military adventures at first creates a sense of funny but step by step everything becomes more dramatic because the war shows absurdities and contradictions that creates real human destruction. The maximum point is touched at the end. Because of this antimilitary soul in 1959 the movie was a real proof of intelligence.

7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Ne'er-do-well heroes, 24 December 2002
Author: Gerald A. DeLuca (italiangerry@gmail.com) from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

(Includes spoilers!) THE GREAT WAR stands as one of the essential films exemplifying the "commedia all'italiana" genre, that is, films which while being comedies often have a serious, even tragic undertone. Take our two heroes here, the Roman Oreste Jacovacci and the Milanese Giovanni Busacca (Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman). Caught in the insanity of World War I, this Abbott and Costello duo will do anything to escape danger and responsibility. After being fairly successful at the game, they have the misfortune to fall into the hands of the enemy Austrians, who want to pump them for information. But these two connivers and shirkers, in a rush of untapped patriotism, are unwilling to cause the possible deaths of their compatriots and so will chose or allow themselves to die instead. Circumstances turn cowards into heroes, much in the same way the con-artist played by De Sica in IL GENERALE DELLA ROVERE soars to lofty nobility at the end of that film, completed that same year. Talented director Mario Monicelli has filmed a gritty panorama of the World War I, Italy's first real film on the subject, in which the visuals and the overall "feel" are utterly convincing. The great cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno has captured the same period feeling that is akin to old-photographs-come-to-life that we would see later in his 1963 I COMPAGNI (THE ORGANIZER). Here he works in wide-screen CinemaScope that is especially effective in following movements of large numbers of soldiers in the battle scenes. The music by veteran Fellini-composer Nino Rota is appealing, and we get the songs and popular chants of the era. Silvana Mangano provides feminine interest as a crafty prostitute. This is a major Italian film of the 1950's and it should be far better know

5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
World War I Satire, 24 March 2010

Author: Eumenides_0 from Portugal

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The Italians don't have a problem making fun of serious things. Roberto Benigni got the whole world laughing with a Holocaust movie. Lina Wertmüller satirized man's will to survive in her WWII dark comedy, Pasqualino Settebelezze. Mario Monicelli's La Grande Guerra, perhaps the grandfather of such movies, aims its satire at World War I.

The movie follows Giovanni Busacca and Oreste Jacovacci, two comical anti-heroes who are drafted and spend most of the time trying to find ways to stay out of the front or acquire some rare comforts amidst the war. The movie is mostly plot less and instead emphasizes amusing episodic situations. This gives the movie maximum freedom to explore as many situations as the imagination of the screenwriters allowed.

However this movie never stoops to frivolity. Amidst the horrors of war, there's a strong criticism of war in general and also of the way the soldiers are treated by their own country. Monicelli's camera shows the squalor of the trenches, the hunger, the worn boots and uniforms. The battles are bloody, chaotic situations; when it shows Giovanni and Oreste watching a bombardment in the distance, we share with them the relief we're somewhere else. We rejoice when they think their way out of a dangerous situation and commiserate with them over fallen friends.

And like the best war movies, La Grande Guerra manages to show the best of mankind. Comradeship, selflessness, courage, loyalty are in display here.

La Grande Guerra is over 50 years and yet remains an impressive experience. Modern movies can be technically more authentic, have better sfx, better make-up, have better sound mixing, etc., but $100 millions of budget won't buy them the emotional core of this forgotten movie.

9 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
The "Divina Commedia" of movies, 5 November 2000

Author: (faldi@libero.it) from Viadana (MN), Italy

I think this is one of the italian masterpieces of all times, disguised as a "comedy", just because the main characters are the best italian comedians of all times, Sordi and Gasmann. I would call it the "Divina Commedia" of comedy and of deep feelings against war but for the defense of one's country.

7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
anti-war film par excellence, 3 December 2000
Author: (rberanek@juno.com) from new York, USA

I saw this in Czechoslovakia way back in 1960's and still remember it. I am glad it lists here as a "comedy", it sure is one. That is why it will not be available to us on video of any format in any language under any circumstances. It subverts the "enetertainment' concept. An alternative ? Try Roberto Begnigni, the schlemiel nouveau.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
La grande guerra (1959), 4 January 2012

Author: Martin Teller from Portland OR

A comedy (or perhaps more accurately a dramedy) about two lazy, cowardly Italian soldiers in the first World War. Sordi and Gassman are both terrific, there's some funny bits and touching commentary, and the film is very well shot with realistic battlefields. It's a sharp, humorous anti-war sentiment. I'm a bit at a loss to explain why I wasn't more taken with it. Maybe it was too scattershot, too episodic. While this does sort of mimic the chaos and randomness of war, I never felt like I could settle into the movie. Some event would start to develop and then be over a few minutes later. Then again, I can think of other movies I enjoy that do something similar (M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY) so maybe that's not it. For whatever reason, I didn't get fully engaged with this film, although I do recognize its assets. One of them being the fantastic, and very appropriate, ending.

8 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
A totally fulfillingly, masterfull black comedy, 27 May 2001
Author: (mantus@online.no) from Oslo Norway

La Grande guerra is one of the underseen, undervalued hordes of sublime European films that never see the light of day.

In the 1960s in the centre of London there was the Academy, Oxford Street, Curzon, Mayfair and one of two other cinemas where the delights of the European cinema were on view. I have lived in Oslo since 1990. It is a cinema friendly city, but overloaded with Hollywood rubbish like most Bruce Willis actioners, or Nicolas Cage going for the money and not to expand his substantial talents as he has done in the past.

This is not intellectual snobbery, just a cry from the heart about the lack of quality that is so endemic in current films.

"Crouching Tiger, Flaming Dragon" - I forget the real title is an example of American audiences accepting the quality of non-US movies.

"Die Hard"-type movies are good only to perhaps release aggression. It shows the typical obsessive need for America to breed only heroes. The villains with the fantastic exception of John Malkovich are usually superb English actors with foreign accents. Alan Rickman in "Die Hard" and Jeremy Irons in one of the mindless sequels.

U571, now the most popular film in video shops where I live is such a devasting con-trick. A real piece of history when a British submarine acquired the Enigma decoding machine which made a significant difference for the Allies to get advance information about German war plans. The heroes are American. Sickening. Dramatic licence is one thing, but fraud is another. The event occurred six months before the US even entered the war. These are well-known complaints.

Reminds one of the crassness of putting of Warner Bros. promoting "Objective Burma" in the autumn after the end of the war. Depiction of Errol Flynn (unfit for war service) winning against the Japanese military with not one British soldier in sight.

Reminds me of the stories of a close friend and veteran of World War II. The US Army using earthmoving machinery to dig trenches when the British had shovels, the often sidelining of American troops due to the prevalence of veneral disease. The stories of British and other troops relieving American positions with a quarter of the manpower.

In movies, with the exception of garishly-suited black pimps in stretch limos, the villains in movies and TV series used BMWs, and other European cars, which also were often beset with engine problems. Unlike the perfection of GM, Ford models etc.

_Don't get me wrong. With the exception of a mad Bellevue, New York psychiatrist I had once Americans are certainly charming, friendly people.

La Grande Guerra is one of the thousands of films that ought to be revived every 10 years like a classic Disney feature.

Add another review

Related Links