The Night of the Shooting Stars
Director: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
Year Released: 1982
Rating: 1.5
Pauline Kael incomprehensibly compared this to Renoir's Grand Illusion on the basis that this tries to show humanity in times of crisis, to which I can only reply: what, and the other great World War II films didn't do that? In my view, this is nowhere near as breathtaking or unforgettable as Renoir's great work; the flights of fancy the directors write into the script are more of a distraction than useful symbolism, and the lack of character development hurts the picture when it tries for a poignant ending. The American soldiers everyone looks for are a bunch of Godots; the allegorical aspects of the movie are supposed to represent the state of Italy during the closing days of WWII but are too ineffectual to be emotionally jarring.
