Battlefield (Italian: Campo di battaglia) is a 2024 Italian war drama film directed by Gianni Amelio, written by Amelio and Alberto Taraglio, and starring Alessandro Borghi as a World War I-era doctor in Northern Italy.
The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion, and was released in Italy by 01 Distribution on 5 September 2024.
Contents
Plot
In 1918, towards the end of World War I, two medical officers—childhood friends Stefano and Giulio—are working at the same military hospital in the Veneto region. Stefano, a captain in the Army Medical Corps from a wealthy bourgeois family, is a staunch nationalist who strives to send wounded soldiers back to the front; in contrast, Giulio, a lieutenant with a background in biology, is moved to pity by their plight. The two men also share a love for the same woman, Anna, a Red Cross nurse. Within the hospital, the condition of many wounded soldiers worsens due to Giulio’s actions—he performs amputations to secure their discharge and send them home—and both Stefano and Anna begin to suspect him. Shortly thereafter, an infectious disease spreads among the troops, and Stefano is forced to have the infected patients moved away from the hospital to contain the outbreak. Giulio is among the infected; Stefano regards him as the only one capable of understanding the situation given his biological expertise. However, while attempting to identify the bacterium and find a cure, Giulio contracts the disease himself and decides to hasten his death by injecting the contents of an infected test tube, while Stefano hints that he intends to abandon both his military and medical careers to enter politics.
Cast
Alessandro Borghi
Gabriel Montesi
Federica Rosellini
Giovanni Scotti
Vince Vivenzio
Alberto Cracco
Luca Lazzareschi
Maria Grazia Plos
Rita Bosello
Release
In July 2024, Battlefield was announced as a main competition entry at that year's Venice International Film Festival.
Reception
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 80%, based on seven critics. The Guardian gave to the film a rating of 3 on 4 stars.
