tartars

THE FLICK: Filmmakers love formulas. It gives them a starting point, a built-in audience, a category on the shelf at Blockbuster. But it’s films like The Desert of the Tartars that leave a more lasting impression, leading the viewer down an unfamiliar path and covering their tracks behind them. It’s both a frightening and exhilarating experience, challenging what we expect from cinema and how we feel about ourselves. Lt. Drogo enters the military with great expectations, only to find himself stationed at a remote outpost on the edge of the desert where he and his fellow officers stand guard against an enemy force none of them has ever laid eyes on...a mythical army of Tartars rumored to exist somewhere in the wasteland beyond. With no armies to fight and no challenges to face, the soldiers lose themselves in rules, regulations and the drudgery of daily life along with fantasies of their own military success against a conquering force that may or may not exist. Filling out its cast with recognizable archetypes (Max Von Sydow) and intense performances (Fernando Rey), Tartars benefits most from the superb location photography by Luciano Tovoli, who uses the camera’s incredible depth of field to compose indelible images against the desert backdrop. It’s a perfect contrast and complement to the film’s themes. To quote George Constanza, Desert of the Tartars is a film about nothing. But the characters in director Valerio Zurlini’s film suffer the emotional, physical and spiritual affects of that “nothingness” with often fatal consequences. Based on the novel by Dino Buzzati, who reportedly wrote the story in reaction to his monotonous experience as a journalist, each character in the film suffers his own little death – just as each viewer will differ on the film’s existentialist meanderings. But the cumulative power of Buzzati’s narrative (and Zurlini’s film) is as affecting as anything produced by Kafka or Kubrick. THE FEATURES: While not as revelatory in nature as some of NoShame Films’ other Italian imports, the transfer on Tartars is nothing to be ashamed of. And the 2-disc set (one containing the feature, the other Ennio Morricone’s original motion picture soundtrack...a fantastic extra in and of itself!) includes a number of special features. They begin with the usual collection of extensive and insightful liner notes that set up the history of the film, then proceed with a series of interviews: Luciano Tovoli and two separate conversations with star Guiliano Gemma. The original theatrical trailer and a poster/still gallery complete what is another welcome addition in NoShame’s library of once-obscure classics now magnificently restored on DVD.