Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

John Madden

Writers:

Shawn Slovo (screenplay)
Louis de Bernières (novel)

Release Date:

17 August 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Music | Romance | War

Plot:

When a fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during WWII, his fiancee falls in love with the local Italian commander.

Plot Keywords:

Italian | Island | Love | Doctor | Greek Island

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Penélope Cruz	...	Pelagia
John Hurt	...	Dr. Iannis
Christian Bale	...	Mandras
Irene Papas	...	Drosoula
Gerasimos Skiadaressis	...	Mr. Stamatis
Aspasia Kralli	...	Mrs. Stamatis
Mihalis Giannatos	...	Kokolios
Dimitris Kaberidis	...	Father Aresenios (as Dimitris Kamperidis)
Pietro Sarubbi	...	Velisarios, The Strongman (as Pedro Sarubbi)
Viki Maragaki	...	Eleni, Pelagia's Friend
Joanna-Daria Adraktas	...	Young Lemoni
Ira Tavlaridis	...	Older Lemoni
Katerina Didaskalou	...	Lemoni's Mother
Emilios Chilakis	...	Dimitris
Nikos Karathanos	...	Spiros

Also Known As:

Capitaine Corelli (France)

MPAA:

Rated R for some violence, sexuality and language.

Runtime:

131 min

Country:

UK | France | USA

Language:

English | Greek | German | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Brazil:12 | South Korea:15 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:M18 | Argentina:13 | Australia:MA | Canada:14A | Chile:TE | Finland:K-15 | Germany:12 (bw) | Hungary:14 | Italy:T | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R13 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG (edited for re-rating) | Singapore:R(A) (original rating) | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #37955)

Filming Locations:

Kefallonia island, Greece

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Katie Holmes auditioned for the role of Pelagia.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: The movie implies that the earthquake that devastated Kefalonia after World War II occurred in 1947. It was actually in 1953. At the end of the credits, the movie is dedicated to the memory of those who died in the post-war earthquake of 1953. The DVD commentary also mentions the correct date.

Quotes:

Pelagia: Why did you save him? Why didn't you leave him to die?
Mandras: I wanted you to love me again.
[Pulls out 100 letters]
Mandras: In Albania, I made them read every one of these to me... 'Mandras, I love you,' 'Mandras, I want you,' 'Mandras, when are you coming back?' And then one day, a different letter. 'I don't know how to describe my feelings. It's as if I have been waiting a hundred years to hear from you, waiting a hundred years for you to return. Once, my heart was overflowing with love for you, but now all I feel is emptiness. And I think it was all just a pretense, that I never loved you at all.'

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Gilmore Girls: The Road Trip to Harvard (#2.4)" (2001)

Soundtrack:

Giovinezza

Love And War And Occupation

After a somewhat slow start I thought this movie about the Italian occupation of a Greek island during World War II picked up and became a quite enjoyable watch for a couple of hours, from primarily two points of view.

The love triangle is an interesting one and strikes me as believable, because I know it happened in various places under occupation. Penelope Cruz played Pelagia, a young Greek girl engaged to be married to Mandras (Christian Bale). I had questions about the depth of their love from the start, but their future was torn apart when Italy invaded Greece, and Mandras went off to fight. After German intervention, Greece is conquered and the island Pelagia lives on comes under Italian occupation, during which Pelagia meets and begins to fall in love with Captain Corelli (Nicholas Cage.) This, of course, was a dilemma that came to many young women in occupied lands. As they got to know their occupiers, they started to see them not as the enemy but as real people, and sometimes fell in love - often to the disapproval of their neighbours. I just finished reading an interesting book about the German occupation of Britain's Channel Islands in which this was a major issue. Once Mandras returns to the island, Pelagia is torn between them.

The second background issue is the Italian occupation itself, which I thought was quite realistically portrayed. First was the contempt with which the island treated their Italian occupiers. Greece defeated Italy (quite true from a historical perspective) and was really conquered by the Germans. The refusal of the town to surrender to the Italians and instead to insist on surrendering to a German officer struck me as something that could well have happened (and was quite funny in fact. I loved the line, "we would rather surrender to this German's dog than to you Italians.") The portrayal of the Italian troops also struck me as believable. The Italian Army was never enamoured of their German ally, and never enthusiastic about fighting with them. Although Hitler and Mussolini were close friends, their soldiers tended to treat each other with contempt. Here, the Italians are more interested in singing than fighting (which the German troops on the island simply can't understand,) and are ecstatic when Italy makes peace and withdraws from the war - until they discover that this may well make them prisoners of the Germans. It was all quite well done, I thought.

It falters a bit at the end with an all too predictable finish, but still deserves praise.

7/10