Battleground Review: A Raw & Real Image of War

Gianni Amelio’s latest film, Battleground (Campo di Battaglia), forces us to see World War I like we have never seen it before on the big screen.

As the intertitles immediately tell us, Battleground is set in 1918: World War I is drawing to a close and Northern Italy, where this film takes place, is struggling. Giulio (Alessandro Borghi, of SuperSex) and Stefano (Gabriel Montesi) are childhood friends; they are both Army doctors in the same military hospital that constantly sees wounded people come in everyday from the front. Many of them, however, suffer from self-inflicted wounds, as they are ready to do anything to avoid returning to the battlefield: Giulio and Stefano have very different attitudes on the subject. In an already dire situation, the outbreak of a new deadly infection both at the front and through the civilian population complicates matters even more.

Battleground draws up a very accurate image of what Italy looked like during the First World War. From the costumes to the production design, every single detail in the movie is designed to create the atmosphere of Italy in the early 1900s. The film does a particularly good job at portraying the image of a fragmented country whose citizens barely speak the same language at the time this story is set. This is especially true when it comes to the many dialects that we hear spoken in the film from many different regions in Italy.

In Battleground, the soldiers often speak in their regional dialects, all very different from each other, rather than in Italian. This allows the audience to immediately understand where each character is from and their social and economic status, as the more educated characters – namely, the doctors – are the only ones who speak to each other in Italian. The clever use of language also poignantly portrays the divide within Italy as the country’s soldiers struggle to communicate in a common language. While this may seem like a small and subtle element that easily gets lost in the translation to English, it is very important and historically accurate to the context of the time.  

From the very beginning of the film, Battleground establishes itself as a film focused on portraying the realism of the war. The intertitles over a black background introduce us to the historical context of the time, immediately giving the movie a documentary feel. The seldom use of music, which is mostly diegetic when we do hear it, also adds to this realism. During the course of the movie, it never shies away from portraying the harsh reality of the war, without ever glorifying it which tends to happen a lot, at least to some level, in war films. Thanks to its excellent camerawork, often moving rather than static, Amelio draws the audience in the story both narratively and physically with the camera movements.

The intertitles at the beginning inform us that the film begins in “1918, the year of victory.” While 1918 is, in fact, the year of victory in our collective consciousness, the film immediately shows us that there is very little victory to be seen when it comes to war. Even when there are victories to celebrate for Italy in the overall outcome of the wall, it becomes increasingly clear that for the people who fought this war, there is not much to celebrate as the film keeps showing us injured soldiers on whom the World War I has taken a physical and mental toll that no victory could ever set right.

I also particularly liked how Battleground approaches its story – and, therefore, the war – first and foremost through the eyes of doctors. This becomes particularly important as the plot takes a turn to focus on the Spanish Flu pandemic. This is especially fascinating to see on the screen as films and media products on the First World War don’t usually feature the Spanish Flu, despite its massive impact on the war and global reach, both of which this film makes a point of showing. Naturally, the topic of a widespread deadly pandemic also rings a bell to audiences today. The film is set during World War I but its connection to today’s situation cannot be ignored with its depiction of a epidemic and strong anti-war message.

The narrative structure of Battleground is somewhat unconventional: a lot of it doesn’t really follow the classic three-act structure. Instead, there is a clear divide between the two halves of the film as the main character physically changes location but also finds himself facing an entirely new problem halfway through the film. While the two parts could have been tied together better still works very well thanks to its great pacing that constantly keeps the tension going. I also wish the movie had explored the main characters’ backgrounds and their connections with each other more. Their backstories are merely suggested and yet delving deeper into them would have created a stronger sense of attachment which, in turn, would make the audience care even more about their fate and future.

Overall, Battleground is still an excellent film, especially for fans of war movies. It easily establishes itself as one of the best of the genres in its portrayal of the war from a new and fascinating angle. Amelio’s latest moviedoesn’t need massive battle scenes or to even show the front at all in order to communicate its subject matter without compromising its powerful message or emotional stakes. 

Battleground (Campo di Battaglia) had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2024 and will be released in Italian cinemas on September 5. Read our review of Amos Gitai’s Why War!