The struggle is way away, however ever so shut, in Battleground (Campo di Battaglia), director Gianni Amelio’s sober research of medical doctors treating wounded troopers in Italy as World Battle I involves an in depth. Lowering the battle to a chamber piece the place a trio of former medical college students conflict over the ethical repercussions of their duties, the movie raises some fascinating and altogether well timed questions, however by no means builds into a robust drama.

Set nearly solely in a navy hospital miles from the entrance, Battleground fitfully conveys the utter horrors of the Nice Battle, revealing the deep bodily and psychological accidents of troopers arriving on stretchers for remedy. A lot of them are in reality so shell-shocked (what we now name PTSD) that they’re keen to additional hurt themselves so as to keep away from getting despatched again to the entrance, the place they’re certain to die.

The sufferers triaged and handled by a pair of devoted navy medical doctors with opposing ethical viewpoints. On one facet is Captain Stefano (Gabriel Montesi), the well-connected son of a robust household who believes his obligation is to assist the struggle effort by sending troopers again to battle as quickly as doable. And on the opposite facet there’s Lieutenant Giulio (Alessandro Borghi), who’s from a modest background and clearly extra compassionate. Unbeknownst to the medical workers, he secretly assists the already wounded by injuring them additional, blinding them or amputating physique elements to allow them to keep away from redeployment.

The 2 physicians have been pals since med faculty and the battle between them is brewing, though it takes Stefano a very long time to determine that Giulio is the one committing treason by serving to troopers escape the entrance. This is likely one of the extra doubtful plot factors within the script by Amelio and common co-writer Alberto Taraglio: The hospital they work in isn’t very massive and there don’t appear to be many different medical doctors, so who else could possibly be serving to harm troopers escape their duties however Giulio? One other weak aspect is the character of Anna (Federica Rosellini), a former scholar who involves work with them as a nurse, and who will get caught up in each an ethical quandary and love triangle.

The rote scripting and route undercut what may have been a stronger research of WWI’s innumerable victims, just a few of whom function prominently within the early levels of the movie. In truth, a number of the younger males, who hail from Sicily and different impoverished elements of Italy, are livelier and extra fascinating than the 2 stiff physicians, who’re so buttoned-up that they’re reasonably boring to observe.

Amelio made some good films within the ’90s, together with The Stolen Kids and Lamerica, however his newest has the whiff of a well-intentioned telefilm. The lensing feels typically flat and the strain by no means rises above a low boil, even when the dilemmas confronted by the medical doctors — caught between obligation and humanitarianism, between saving a life and mutilating a dwell physique to take action — are definitely intriguing.  

It’s over the past act that Battleground takes on a distinct resonance, when the primary victims of the 1918 Spanish flu start to reach on the hospital with extreme coughs and fever. Quickly, the younger aren’t dying from gunshots and mortar fireplace, however from a illness that’s spiraling uncontrolled. The medical doctors and nurses all begin sporting masks, and also you don’t want a booster of the Modena or Pfizer vaccine to be reminded of the current pandemic.

Amelio makes use of the surging epidemic to deliver all three protagonists collectively once more, shifting areas to a morose quarantine facility the place Giulio has principally been sentenced to die. The closing scenes provide little hope that issues will enhance for him or anybody else round him, and everyone knows how WWI ended: with much more mass deaths as a consequence of an unstoppable flu that lasted for roughly two years. There’s no likelihood for victory on the finish of Battleground, however no less than the courageous Giulio put up struggle.