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Rating: We are in the midst of the Renaissance, a period considered a turning point in history: in the case of "Il mestiere delle armi" it is precisely the moment when firearms begin to spread, changing the way wars are fought.
Ermanno Olmi, who here achieves stylistic peaks that are, in my opinion, unmatched, chooses to portray the dramatic human story of a hero of his time: Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. Giovanni is a young, courageous, and feared mercenary captain; he serves the papal army and is engaged in defending the territory from the descent of the German Lanzichenecchi.
The narrative opens and closes with the death of the very young (twenty-six-year-old) Giovanni: the opening scene, which starts with the view of the solitary coffin inside the Church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua, is a worthy, moving beginning to Giovanni's earthly story. Betrayed by Federico Gonzaga and ignored by Clement VII, he will die from the consequences of an artillery shot to the leg after a few days of terrible agony.
The context in which Olmi sets the story is a bleak and wintery Po Valley, made icy by magnificent cinematography that contrasts with the indoor scenes of the noble palaces of Mantua and Ferrara, where the enveloping color of the interiors enhances the contrast between the soft and corrupt Mantuan nobility and the almost ascetic rigor of Giovanni, engaged in his tragic mission.
The film presents some passages that are not always easy, especially in the dialogue moments in the local dialect and with some overall slowness, but the audience is amply rewarded by the glimpses of great cinema that Maestro Olmi offers us: the "still" images of the characters that seem to compose sixteenth-century paintings, the heartbreaking "mystical" agony of Giovanni, the disorienting flashbacks evoking Giovanni's detachment from the family he will never see again, the austere representation of war, seen as a political necessity guided by opportunism.
Olmi's hand confidently guides a splendid cast of actors, which in my opinion finds its peak in the protagonist H. Jivkov (Giovanni delle Bande Nere), who superbly interprets a figure of a man dedicated to an ideal, rigorous and austere even in his youth, strong and extraordinarily dignified in suffering (before dying, he will undergo leg amputation, depicted in twenty minutes of great cinema).
It is not an easy film, but I believe we will only regret the ability of directors like Olmi to capture events of our history and life, transfiguring them through universal poetry and sensitivity.
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