The Truce (1997 film)

Infobox Film
name = La Tregua


caption = Promotional Poster
director = Francesco Rosi
producer = Véra Belmont, et al
writer = Tonino Guerra
Primo Levi, et al
starring = John Turturro
Rade Serbedzija
music = Banda Osiris
cinematography = Pasqualino De Santis
Marco Pontecorvo
editing = Ruggero Mastroianni
Bruno Sarandrea
released = April 24, 1998
runtime = 125 min.
country = United States
language = English, Russian, etc.
imdb_id = 0117959

"The Truce" ("La Tregua" in Italian) is a 1997 film directed by Francesco Rosi, written by Tonino Guerra, based on Primo Levi's autobiography, "The Truce". The film deals with Primo Levi's experiences returning from the concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War.

Plot

Although liberated on January 27, 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until October 19 of that year. After spending some time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of former Italian prisoners of war from the Italian Army in Russia. His long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Russia, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.

Awards

This film won the David for Best Director, Best Film and Best Producer at the David di Donatello Awards. It also won the Audience Award at the São Paulo International Film Festival.

Reception

Whereas the film can be seen as belonging to the tradition of the "cinema of prose," it also contributes to the "cinema of poetry" as defined by Pier Paolo Pasolini. [cite news
last = Erbaggio
first = Pierluigi
coauthors =
title = Francesco Rosi’s The Truce (1997)
work =
pages =
language =
publisher = Italian Film blog
date= 2007-11-18
url = http://italianfilm.blogspot.com/2007/11/francesco-rosis-truce-1997.html
accessdate = 2007-11-19 "In fulfilling his duty of messenger of a messenger, as said before, Rosi is very assertive and didactic. In the second half of the film, in fact, in a series of short scenes, many issues related to the Holocaust are treated and apparently exhausted in a very simplistic way. ... A scene that could be qualified as a moment of Pasolinian Cinema of Poetry is the scene in which the Italian survivors watch through a window the Russian family who gave them food to eat. Uncertain about their journey and about the fate of their own families, in this scene through the deforming glasses of a window this family appears like an unreachable mirage. The deformation and the color of these images tell us about the feelings and desires of these Italian men much more than they could explain with words by themselves."]

Brian Webster, writing for the "Apollo Guide", finds the film "a war story with little violence and virtually no sentimentality. If you're not ready for it, you might find The Truce passing before your eyes without making much of an impact. It doesn't smack you in the face with a powerful message, but instead works its way inside you more gradually." [Bruce Webster, " [http://apolloguide.com/mov_fullrev.asp?CID=809&RID=1160 Truce, The] " "Apollo Guide"]

References