Mediterraneo movie storyline. Greek Sea, World War II. An Italian ship leaves a handful of soldiers in a little island; their mission is to spot enemy ships and to hold the island in case of attack. The village of the island seems abandoned and there isn’t a single enemy in sight, so the soldiers begin to relax a little.
Things change when their ship is hit and destroyed by the enemy, and the soldiers find themselves abandoned there. Actually, the island isn’t deserted and when the Greeks understand that those Italians are harmless, they came out of their hiding places in the mountains and continue their peaceful lives. Soon the soldiers discover that being left behind in a God-forgotten Greek island isn’t such a bad thing, after all…
Mediterraneo is a 1991 Italian film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991. The film is set during World War II, and regards a group of Italian soldiers who become stranded on a Greek island and are left behind by the war. The filming took place on the Greek island of Kastellórizo, in the Dodecanese island complex.
About the Story
In 1941, one year after Italy joined Germany against the Allies in World War II, a small group of misfit Italian soldiers is sent to a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea for four months of lookout duty. The soldiers include a lieutenant who likes art, a macho sergeant, a farmer accompanied by his beloved donkey Silvana, and other quirky people. They are not very good soldiers, but a cross section of average, independent men.
The soldiers anticipate attack from outside and on the island and take all sorts of inept precautions. They find a small town with no people. That night, they see bombing on the horizon and realize that the ship that would pick them up has been destroyed. Then mysteriously, people reappear in the village: the villagers say they hid because the Germans had taken all the men, but having seen that the Italians are absolutely harmless they have decided to return to their lives. It isn’t long before everyone’s sunny nature appears. The Italian soldiers, unacquainted to a war they clearly don’t sense as theirs, are absorbed into the life, heat and landscape of the idyllic island.
Mediterraneo (1991)
Directed by: Gabriele Salvatores
Starring: Diego Abatantuono, Claudio Bigagli, Giuseppe Cederna, Claudio Bisio, Gigio Alberti, Ugo Conti, Vasco Mirandola, Vana Barba, Luigi Montini, Irene Grazioli
Screenplay by: Enzo Monteleone
Production Design by: Thalia Istikopoulou
Cinematography by: Italo Petriccione
Film Editing by: Nino Baragli
Costume Design by: Francesco Panni
Music by: Giancarlo Bigazzi, Marco Falagiani
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality, language and drug content.
Distributed by: Miramax Films
Release Date: January 31, 1991
Hits: 126
