by Joseph Davis, Contributing Writer
Okay, I’m going to admit I’m doing something a bit different this time around for Out of Market. Usually, I try to avoid films that have big name actors in them as I feel that it detracts from what I want to try to bring you: vastly underseen foreign films with actors largely unknown to U.S. audiences that deserve their day in the sun. However, what if I told you there was a film starring Peter Finch of Network fame, Hardy Krüger from Barry Lyndon, Claudia Cardinale of 8 ½ and Once Upon a Time in the West, and Sean Connery from… well he needs no introduction. This movie is one I’ve been wanting to see for a while, but I finally got the chance to watch the Soviet-Italian movie The Red Tent. This movie intrigued me for a few reasons. One, we have some powerhouse actors in a movie that I only just somewhat recently learned about and that, quite frankly, for a while proved difficult to find, only recently being where I could rent it through Amazon Prime. Two, I have a strong affinity for the golden age of airships. While they may only circle football games nowadays, something about the age of exploration and travel using lighter than air craft brings something out of me, and a telling of what at the time was a major news story just made me want to give this movie its due diligence.
The first thing I want to talk about here, and a reason why I honestly think this movie is downright phenomenal, is how this story is framed. They easily could have just stuck with the main story, that of Umberto Nobile’s (Finch) ill-fated arctic expedition aboard the airship Italia, and the resulting crash and would have had a perfectly fine movie. That story in itself and the response to Nobile’s reputation would have been fantastic to see on its own. However, the filmmakers decided to include something that sets this apart: the events of the crash of the Italia serve more as a backdrop and dramatization of what happened, while instead, we are treated with something more akin to a courtroom drama playing out in an elder Umberto’s mind, with the ghosts of his past serving as judge, prosecution, eyewitnesses, and jury. They portray Umberto Nobile as he’s grappling once more with the choices he made leading up to and while he and his crew were stranded on the ice. It’s a fascinating area to explore, even with this being a fictionalized version of events, and it keeps you enraptured in what’s going on. It also paints a different picture to the story of a main character who has to tackle if he made the right decision or if they’ve failed.
I also like how this movie is shot in a lot of ways. At times, the special effects are a bit bland to poor, but from the events inside the tent after the Italia crashes, to even inside the hull of the ill fated airship, to even just the scenes inside of Nobile’s flat as he’s putting himself on trial, they work. They may not be the fantastic shots that chew the scenery, but they do exactly what they need to do. The camerawork does a good job at showing the cramped conditions inside the wrecked gondola of the Italia, and of the endless white that is the arctic. It also helps to allow for the focus of the movie when, back at Nobile’s flat, it helps to focus the action on the free and major players on the story. Granted, there are some scenes that miss the mark for, but that’s not because the camerawork is done poorly; more just semantics over the set design that don’t matter. Namely, one shot that bothered me is upon the point when Roald Amundsen (Connery) enters the trial and discusses his death, I think it’s a downright perfect moment that, despite being fictionalized, makes a note that his life was much like the lives of those who perished in the crash: lost forever. It’s more that the Italia was a semi-rigid airship, but the set used makes it seem more like a rigid airship. However, that does nothing to hurt the scene, as I think it far and beyond is one of the best moments of the film, and this small bit of information does nothing to hurt the films quality.
The last thing I want to touch on here is the actors and characters. This might be the one area I would have some of the biggest criticisms of this one. Overall, the acting is good, if not great. Granted, it would have been cooler to see actors from Italy and the Nordic countries to play the likes of Nobile and Amundsen, but Finch and Connery do a fine job. I also love who they have for the crew of the Italia and the combined rescue teams both aboard the Krasin and those on dry land. My main issues lie with two characters: Nurse Valeria (Cardinale) and Lt. Einar Lundborg (Krüger). Now don’t get me wrong, I think both of these are great actors and they do a great job in the roles given. I just feel like the filmmakers used their roles as both a plot device to explain points of the story (such as Lundborg deciding to make the flight to the crash site, and Amundsen launching his own attempt), and as a Villain in Lundborg in his motivations and actions. I’m not sure that this film needed either of these, and that while Lundborg could have been portrayed at chasing glory only to bring the reputation of an arctic explorer crashing down would have been interesting, and maybe even Valeria could still be in the movie hoping against hope for lost love Malmgren, their use as presented is a minor bump in the road for an otherwise good movie.
I’ll admit, this was probably one of the more interesting ones I’ve written on for Out of Market, but I also feel like it’s a hidden gem in the careers of the actors in the film. In a way, since it was co-produced by the Soviet Union, I’m sure that most of the actors in this film could have been risking their careers to make this one. Not only that, but some certain world events harken back to some of the worst aspects of the old Soviet regime. However, this movie is one that I feel like a lot of people can learn from — that when the time is right, humanity can band together and ignore personal and national lines and work to achieve a common goal. While the main narrative is self forgiveness, it cannot be understated that we as a world can band together to help those in need, and that we really should regardless of the person or the situation.
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