Don Camillo (1984)

Best movie ever!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

In my opinion, this is possibly the best movie of Terence Hill. It's funny (the kind of funny you don't laugh loudly but you smile very often) and it is also a warm-hearted comedy with human and credible characters. I think Hill is a very good director and I like the script and the way of describing Camilo and Pepone, both with virtues and shortcomings but above all human beings fighting from opposite sides (Church vs Communism) and at the same time trying to understand each other. I really think the comparison with the films of Fernandel is not necessary, this film is made in eighties and, as another reviewer comments, the times had changed. Nice score and nice (underrated) movie.

OK, I have to say that the old Don Camillio films were excellent, but this one is not as bad as people would let you know.It is said that the hard line communists are watered down and that Don Camillio is too cool (not too cold and remote, but too hip, to trendy).Well, it is in the eighties, so one should bare in mind that it was the time when everybody was tired of the constant struggle between the communists and the church. So having them actually work together and showing more of the down sides of a worldly priest and more or less a positive side of a communist leader of a local community is also a message. You can't have a crusade against something that's not evil, but simply is. The communists in that era (acctually in all eras after the death of Lenin) who lived outside the Eastern Block (and most of them in the Eastern Block as well) were not monsters trying to destroy everything. So in this case you see a very human communist mayor and a skeptical priest, who is still trying to fight communism for the very principle of it, even if there is really no need for it.In my opinion it's a great movie, but with a completely different message from the original series. The times have changed, and so has the situation and Terence Hill saw that change and tried to incorporate it in the movie. It's actually very good that there were no stereotypical communist bad guys (like it's a positive thing to present the low ranking officers in Nazi Germany as humans instead of blood thirsty monsters).

This movie lacks the charm and the warmth of the original stories by Guareschi. Transporting the context 30 years forward into present-day (that is: 1980s) Italy was probably the right thing to do, since the distance in time wasn't big enough to film this as a period piece, but turning Don Camillo into such a cool dude rips the heart out of these stories. Mario Girotti plays the character in Trinity style, aloof, quirky, dead-pan; but this Camillo is barely recognisable as the passionately caring priest of the books. I don't think the earlier Camillo incarnation by Fernandel was right either (e.g. Fernandel's Camillo was not physical enough), but at least it exuded the required warmth. A cool Don Camillo creates another problem: what happens with his constant little battles with Peppone and his party? Peppone's communist shenanigans are similarly toned down and as a result the antagonism between the two sides does not ring true - at least not to the extent the stories require. Thus, this film version also lacks the tension, conflict and hatred between the two camps. Perhaps there was some sensitivity here towards the American market: no children's movies with real communists in them, please!A few changes to cater for the international market are also embarrassing: the two soccer teams are called "Angels" and "Devils" (in English!) and a couple of the songs performed in Church are in English as well. This is situated in rural Italy!

This is quite an atypical vehicle for Hill. Though I've never read any of the original stories, apparently they are short stories. This may explain why there is no central plot here, and there being a mass collection of vignettes instead. It may also explain why the tone of the movie is so wildly inconsistant - sometimes it's melancholy, sometimes goofy, sometimes dead serious, sometimes of a (and quite violent at times) slapstick nature. I guess it's supposed to be a comedy at its heart, but I didn't really find that much humorous about it, though there are one or two smiles here and there.