La grande guerre

To the ghost of Mario Monicelli,

Ciao ancora! The Great War/La Grande Guerra is the second movie directed by you that I watched over the last two weeks. I come from a patriotic country. And the only war films I have seen are mostly the American and British ones and the awful Indian ones. But your film was unique compared to all of them. It is almost a film which a commercial film audience could enjoy though I guess the hardcore patriots would not identify with the two cowardly lead characters. But they are characters anyone with a soul could relate to. Your film hardly ever had a dull moment. It was hilarious. There were so many instances when I laughed my ass off.

The traitorous deserting characters were so tongue in cheek. The characterization is pure genius. The Destouches character from Celine's Journey to the End of the Night came to mind while I watched Oreste and Giovanni stumble through their life in the army. You did a great job portraying the horror of war despite the antics of the two protagonists. It is always the poor and the wretched who are doomed to fight the wars of the rich. Not an original message, but your treatment of this theme was unique.

Vittorio Gassman is such an amazing actor. In India, someone who looked like him would never play a loser. Now I have watched three movies where he plays total losers.

I will be stealing more of your movies over the next few weeks, Mario.

Best Regards, Pimpin.