THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS
[IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI]
The final film directed by Italy's Valerio Zurlini is an oneiric meditation on militarism based on a celebrated 1940 novel by Dino Buzzati. Assigned to a remote desert outpost, the young lieutenant Drogo (Jacques Perrin) anxiously awaits his first encounter with the enemy army. But the enemy never appears. His platoon keeps drilling, and life continues elsewhere, but Drogo and company remain trapped in their fortress. As time passes, their world becomes even more untethered from the wider one. Absent any external enemy, the officers bicker among themselves, soldiers mutiny and illness and madness creep in. The international cast includes Vittorio Gassman, Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret, Fernando Rey, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Max von Sydow, Francisco Rabal and Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz. The real-life location of the film's Fortezza Bastiani was the medieval Bam Citadel fortress in Iran, later declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, and badly damaged by a 2003 earthquake. The atmospheric score is by Ennio Morricone. “[THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS] may be the grandest and most lavish existentialist parable ever made” – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice. DIR Valerio Zurlini; SCR Jean-Louis Bertuccelli, André G. Brunelin, from the novel "The Tartar Steppe" by Dino Buzzati; PROD Michelle de Broca, Bahman Farmanara, Mario Gallo, Enzo Giulioli, Jacques Perrin, Giorgio Silvagni. Italy/France/West Germany/Iran, 1976, color, 140 min. In Italian with English subtitles. RATED PG
Restored 4K DCP courtesy of Cinecittà.
AFI Member passes accepted.
Run Time: 140 Minutes
Opening Date: Saturday, July 06, 2024
Genre: Historical drama
