Well.....it's not that it's a great movie or anything like that, but it's well made and has some more "lyrical" passages along the way. Not a typical war-movie at all, dealing with "revolution"(= Corbari, the hero) vs. fascism in Italy during w.w.2 Two scenes stand out...especially the first one, which I hold as one of filmhistory's best staged execution-scenes ever!!! Damn fine editing and some passionate music to go with the "emotinal" happenings. Second scene is the finale where, again, people are being executed.This time they're hanged though. In the first one they were shot.Director Orsini has an outspoken flair for these matters it seems. Saw this on Danish videotape....letterboxed 1:1.90 approx.... English language...running 97.18 mins, pal time. Tina Aumont dosn't dress down I'm afraid....but instead we get full frontal male nudity for those into such ah...!!??
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von-132 June 2000
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Although it's part of the Italian WW2 sub-genre of film-making, CORBARI is unlike anything you've seen before. It eschews the usual DIRTY DOZEN rip-off filmmaking and imported American stars to tell a true story laced with gritty realism and downbeat pessimism. And for those reasons, it really stands out from the crowd as something special.
Silvio Corbari was a real life patriot in WW2-era Italy who decided to rise up against the Nazis and fight against fascism. He preferred to set up his own group rather than joining the established resistance, and was soon carrying out sabotage missions and the like. CORBARI chronicles his exploits and features a strong acting performance from Giuliano Gemma as the lead. Gemma, usually stuck in stock spaghetti westerns with an easy-going character, is deadly serious here and all the better for it.
CORBARI was largely shot outdoors in the winter which gives the film a grim and downbeat look, the colour palette awash with browns and greys. The action is realistic without any crowd-pleasing stunts or the like; this is about a life or death struggle in which every death counts and hits home. A good score adds to the movie's power, and there's an unbearably moving execution scene which might well be the most emotive I've seen in all of Italian cinema. It's not exactly the kind of film to achieve mainstream success, but if you're looking for something outside of the norm then this is the film to see.