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El Alamein: Line of Fire is an Italian war film that depicts the Italian point of plan in the pivotal Battle of El Alamein in the topple of 1942. The time period covered is early October to about 8 November 1942. Overall, this film was better than I expected but it has a rather mixed quality to it. The non-combat scenes that report the grimy quality of life in the front-line trenches are sterling and the character development is very worthy, but the combat scenes are sub-par.
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El Alamein follows the standard war film conceit: the little unit drama. In this case, the unit is a company-size detachment in the 27th Infantry Regiment, 17th “Pavia” Division, stationed at the crude south of the Axis line next to the Qattara Depression. The main characters are Lieutenant Fiori, Sergeant Rizzo and the new-comer, Private Serta. The first half of the film involves the tedium and suffering of static warfare in the desert, particularly with the emphasis on dreadful supplies of water and food. There are several minor episodes in this phase of the film which are veteran to “flesh out” the main characters, with the most titillating being Sergeant Rizzo and Serta going into the Qattara Depression to recognize for a lost Bersaglieri patrol. Uniforms, cramped arms and kit extinct in the film are authentic, but not quite as comprehensive as what was customary in the better “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.” The director also makes substantial wretchedness to depict the swear lack of disaster of Mussolini and the Italian generals for their troops at the frontline, including sending exhortations to “fight or die” instead of sending potable water. On the other hand, I was delighted that the director chose to omit any type of conflict or tension within the unit, which so often is archaic to unrealistically depict life in combat units. The soldiers pick up along fairly well and Private Serta’s adaptation to the front is fairly unruffled, unlike other trashy films like “Platoon” that emphasize internal discord. Overall, this first half of the film is probably the best and compares well with other foreign war films, such as the Finnish “Ambush.”
Once the British attack begins on 23rd October - about halfway through the film - the quality starts to decline a bit. Obviously, the film did not have a gigantic budget and it is difficult to depict a battle that keen over 300,000 troops without spending some. Furthermore, the film becomes somewhat unhistorical as far as depicting the British attacks - British tanks (actually fresh M60 tanks) are shown driving on line toward the Italian positions with headlights on! Nor do the Italian positions have considerable in the diagram of AT mines or AT guns in help (in fact, the Italians had 47mm AT guns and artillery supporting all the frontline positions), so the British unprejudiced roll fight over them. Our boys from the “Pavia” are sent to reinforce the “Folgore” parachute division and suffer about 50% losses, but absorb. In reality, these were diversionary attacks while the main British attack was to the north. Indeed, the “Pavia” division saw less action at El Alamein than most Axis units.
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The raze comes rather posthaste once the British breakthrough in the north. Rommel and the Afrika Korps retreat westward, leaving the Italians to fend for themselves (the Germans are shown very miniature, only yelling “you’re all going to die” as they drive by them) . The men of Pavia commence walking westward in the desert, but soon all of the company is captured except for LT Fiori, Rizzo and Serta. At this point, once it becomes certain that they cannot elude the British and that their chances for survival in the desert are nil, the viewer will wonder why these characters would chose to press on. Indeed, it appears that one motive of this film was to recount the Italian soldier in the Second World War as more stalwart and resolute than popularly imagined. However, the reality is that the majority of the Italians who fought at El Alamein were captured and thousands sought out the British rather than die in the desert.
Aside from lack of great heavy weapons in the film (a British aircraft is shown once), the other spot with the film is the omission of any ample role for either the Germans or the British. This omission induces a “Robinson Crusoe” quality to the film, where you almost feel that these men are marooned in the desert with no friends or foes. In actuality, Rommel had inter-mixed German and Italian units at El Alamein to “stiffen” the weaker Italian formations. Instead, we only catch a ogle of retreating Germans and it is highly spoiled. The British are shown only as casualties on the ground, or in silhouette as attackers in the night, but we are never shown any POWs or close-interaction, as in “Saving Private Ryan.” Overall, this film is a commendable exertion and worth viewing to accumulate Italian perspectives, but like many in this genre, it has sacrificed realism due to a combination of budget constraints and nationalistic conceits.
El Alamein tells the fable of the battle from the point of thought of the Italian side, especially from that of a young Italian lieutenant volunteering for combat and the infantry company he’s assigned to with the Pavia Infantry division. The film is a bleak behold at how the Italian troops were left to fend for themselves by their absorb commanders and with small resources at their disposal. The battle scenes are decent, not as profitable as they could be in the sense they probably didn’t have the technical resources or budget an American film would’ve had, but obliging enough to give a sense of combat.
Things are attractive tough on the line, water is in short supply, soldiers have to loot the packs of tiresome Brits (technically I reflect Anzacs may have been opposite them) in order to pick up things like canned fruit, investigate the loss of communication with a Bersagliari scout region and the constant artillery barrages which decimates noteworthy of the company’s fighting strength.
It comes to a head in a final series of defensive battles prior to which remarkable of the more mobile German army retreats leaving the foot infantry like the Pavia and adjacent Folgore Airborne Division on their have. Outnumbered and out gunned the company commander finally tries to lead the remnants of his unit succor to the Axis rear through the North African desert.
While the truth is that German interspersed their units among the Italian units like the Pavia and Folgore, they also retreated leaving most of the line infantry who without transportation to fend for themselves. This included sacrificing the Italian Ariete Armored division to provide a conceal for Rommel’s retreat. Although the southern attacks were considered feints, they weren’t by any means light attacks. The Folgore itself, adjacent to the Pavia, fought off several combined ANZAC attacks and destroyed 120 tanks with only a handfull of anti-tank weapons and armour.
Much of the negative treatment of Italians in the war was also misleading. While many of the Italian units were poorly equiped and poorly led, units like the Folgore, Bersaglieri, Ariete and even the Pavia conducted themselves well. The Ariete was destroyed in a final ’screen’, while the Folgore by all accounts fought fiercly with or without Ramcke’s troops alongside them. Of the main-line infantry the Pavia probably conducted themselves best with a decent cadre of junior officers most units only surrendered after being decimated or running out of ammunition.
‘El Alamein’ to a sizable extent reflects the abandonment felt by the line soldiers who did their duty, the resentment of distinguished of Italian writings during the war which blames Rommel for scapegoating them for his fill failings and an underlying sense of resentment at the negative treatment given the Italian soldiers on the line and attempts to expose another side. Worthy film, worth a glance by WWII buffs.
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