World War II. A dozen Italian soldiers is sent to secure a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. They find the town empty, until they stumble upon the only people living there: women, children and elderly, since the men were deported due to the war. Since there is no danger on the island, and their radio has been destroyed, Lieutenant Montini decides to spend his day painting murals in the monastery, so Sgt. Nicola Lo Russo takes over the duties in the town. The soldiers spend time with prostitute Vasilissa, who marries one of them, Farina; or play football, drink and enjoy the sea. A British unit informs them Italy lost the war and decides to evacuate them back to their country, but Farina stays with Vasilissa to open a restaurant with her. Some 40 years later, Montini returns to the island to express condolences to Farina since Vasilissa died, and then finds out Nicola is also there, too.
"Mediterraneo" made accidental headlines when it became part of Roger Ebert's "lost patience" phase since the film critic left the film in the middle of the screening on a whim (he also undeservedly panned some good films like "Police Academy" or "The Devils"), yet it is a perfectly decent and sympathetic little film about people wanting to escape from their obtrusive duties and live an easy life somewhere where it is idyllic. The director Gabriele Salvatores crafts the movie as a simple ode to laziness and carefree attitude, almost as some sort of allegory in which the Greek world, the cradle of democracy, "invisibly" dismantles Italian fascist dictatorship little by little, transforming the Italian protagonists from dutiful soldiers to completely relaxed, liberal 'chill-out' dudes who abandon all the restrictions of fascism (they smoke marijuana; democratically vote to not go to a battle and instead stay on the island; their rifles are removed from them; one soldier even admits to Sgt. Lo Russo he is gay). The main problem is that the story is rather too vague and banal at times, offering only thin episodes from the lives of these soldiers who lose all sense of time (when a man in a small plane lands on their football field and informs them that three years have passed and that Mussolini is dead, they are stunned), but lacking a higher degree of sophistication, inspiration or finesse. This is one of the reasons why "Mediterraneo" is today not that often remembered as one of the key Italian movies of the 90s, since not much happens, while some of the vignettes tend to end up boring and repetitive (swimming in the sea; walking around the island...), yet it gives a nice little hommage to the Mediterranean mentality, and some of the locations on the island really are aesthetic and stunning.
Grade:++
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