Salvatore Samperi
Sturmtruppen

I begin by saying that the comic by Bonvi is not exactly one of my favorites, even though I have given it more than one glance. The broken German of the ragged soldiers and the irreverent ironic vein of the great author from Emilia can certainly be recognized, so much so that Sturmtruppen is still today one of the most loved and widespread comics here in Italy.

Now imagine a special pair, yes, yes, not just any, but a truly special one. Do you think I'm talking about Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy? That's not it, folks... Bud Abbott and Lou Costello? You're off-track, darn... maybe Totò and Peppino? Well, now we're almost there, at least they are Italian. I'm obviously talking about Cochi Ponzoni and Renato Pozzetto, an indestructible Milan pair formed in the early '60s and that hasn't broken yet. To these two artists (comics seem too reductive to define two satirists, two singers, two true entertainers like Cochi and Renato) springs a neat idea:- Why not make a nice satirical film about war, maybe even drawing inspiration from Bonvi? What do you say, Renato (let's say the idea first came to Cochi's mind), are you in?-. The banal genesis of the film I just conceived can only have been so. Let's go into more detail to analyze the characters and themes of the film.

Cochi and Renato (authors of the screenplay and the true stars of the film) offer us a ferocious grotesque satire against the futility of war, openly drawing on Bonvi's work. And so here's a cocaine-addicted, cowardly, clownish and anti-communist general (a gigantic, beyond average size, Cochi Ponzoni), who spends most of his time sniffing and playing with a not-so-inanimate puppet resembling his mortal enemy Karl Marx, an unapologetically gay captain who prefers soldiers with blue eyes (a great Teo Teocoli, also perfectly in sync with the rest of the cast) and a platoon of recruits that are absolutely and tragically unprepared, with soldiers sexually repressed, selfish, lazy, and who spend most of their time doing drugs (great space here for Renato Pozzetto, the actual star of the film, since he is a protagonist in one out of every two scenes, not to forget his two inextricable companions of adventure Massimo Boldi, who, in truth, always annoyed me, and he doesn't redeem himself here either, and Lino Toffolo, a Venetian actor of whom, honestly, I had never heard much about, but who has plenty of space in this film and uses it wisely, in my opinion). Note that the film also features small parts for a young Umberto Smaila (the terrifying Russian camp cook, whose slop is one of the most terrible things to eat) and dear Fernando "Mariangela Fantozzi" Plinio, here in the role of the camp's terrifying surgeon.

The film does not have a proper plot; the ragtag recruits are prepared for war (so to speak), then they leave for the front. There are several memorable scenes, such as the speech about Caesar by the new recruit Sigfrido (I'll kick the butts of sparrows) in front of the Pozzetto-Boldi and Toffolo trio caught in the act of doing drugs, Pozzetto's "shock therapy" with Professor Nadar, Cochi’s speech before the soldiers head to the front (The enemy who only intends to rape your wives... and who cares! Your sisters... and who cares! Your mothers! But who cares! Silence, you bastards!), many more are, however, scenes to remember and that now do not come to mind. But perhaps the most emblematic of all is the final one, the Unknown Soldier sent by God (who, in reality, is revealed by the Soldier himself to be a woman), bearer of the message of the end of the war, is killed with a poisoned host by a wicked military pope. General Ponzoni has every reason to celebrate, as repeatedly stated by the Pope: - The war goes on-.

The music is by Enzo Jannacci, an old friend of the Cochi-Renato pair (like Giorgio Gaber, by the way), with the inescapable tune sung by the duo that often recurs in the background ("struppen, struppen, struppen, ohhh and then streppen, streppen, streppen, ohhh and then scioppen, pissen, culen ohhh...), the quality of the film is not the best, being quite dated (it was made in 1976, the years of lead those, the Torino of Radice won playing with Pulici and Graziani in attack and beating the much-hated cousins... Those were really good times). However, if you want to spend an hour mulling over war (it's not that you’ll laugh that much, eh, the laughter you might experience from the film often comes out of your mouth only with punches), this might be a good film. The language is not always the best, very often it falls into vulgarities and very often into swear words. However, the film has much more pros than cons.

Incredibly ignored at the time, it will most likely be reconsidered now, now that the boom for "trash" films or those so defined, of the '70s or '80s, is developing. Sturmtruppen cannot be considered a true "trash" film, but the strongly irreverent content and some scenes put it on this list. Maybe in a few years, everyone will be talking about this film, and no one will pay attention to Totò, so to speak, right?

A brilliant, irreverent, grotesque film up to the unbelievable, surreal to the nth degree, Sturmtruppen is all this and more. Certainly, it is surely the most valid work of the Cochi-Renato pair, and I recommend it to all lovers of good cinema, although as far as I know, it is hard to find, who knows why, and I'm not even so sure that it airs on TV that often. The truth is that seeing a film where, at the Last Supper, the Pope kills the angel sent by God to end the war, well... to me, that is priceless.

Great Renato, great Cochi, with this film you have entered the history of Italian cinema.