The Italian War on Adamello at 3000 meters

by Luca Comerio
11’, 35 mm, Italy, 1916, silent film
Live musical accompaniment by Igino Maggiotto (accordion)
In collaboration with the Cineteca del Friuli

The Great War entered Italian movie theatres primarily through English and French news reels and German propaganda films. The first films produced and filmed in Italy date to 1915. After the Italian declaration of war on Austria-Hungary, the Italian film industry intensified production of fictional patriot films and news reels about the war. While the former easily found wide audiences, bureaucratic difficulties in gaining authorization to screen them slowed down distribution of the latter. Of these films, many of the most important were made by the director and cameraman Luca Comerio who, after documenting the war in Libya with his “dal vero”, or “on location” films, began an intensive period of work that culminated in 1916 in three feature-length films: La battaglia tra Brenta e Adige, La presa di Gorizia e La guerra d’Italia a 3000 metri sull’Adamello.

Dedicated to Carlo Giordano, the first man to scale Mount Adamello, La guerra d’Italia a 3000 metri sull’Adamello narrates the trials and sacrifices of the alpine soldiers on the Italian front. Comerio’s movie camera follows, in extreme conditions, the soldiers who thanks to cableways bring weapons and materials to the highest altitudes. The long line of alpine soldiers, loaded with planks, straw for the mules, skis, and weapons, climbs toward Adamello’s glacier. Awaiting them up there are scarce rations and the terrifying physical difficulty of pulling up heavy howitzers and digging trenches in the snow. After attending Holy Mass at 3000 meters, the soldiers, in their white uniforms, depart for the assault and fire their weapons from holes in the snow trenches, while the wounded are taken to the field hospital. In the faces of the soldiers, as they descend toward the valley, one reads their satisfaction at having escaped danger, coloured by a thin veil of resignation.