Just seen this for the first time. It’s hard to describe it. Incredible. Moving. Shocking. Humane.
For those who have never heard of it (like me until tonight) it is a film of the memoirs of Norman Lewis in 1943-44. Described on IMDB as a documentary, but that doesn’t really cover it.
Highly recommended.
Thanks for the tip...I will add it to my (very long) list!
ReplyDeleteThanks, v. interesting. I read the book long ago, but was not aware of the film. Al Murray and James Holland discussed Italy in WW2 recently on their podcast, and mentioned how bad things were for the population. Unlike France (where most fighting was confined to Normandy) the battles raged through the whole country over two years, and cities like Naples would have all infrastructure, transport etc destroyed between the retreating Germans and the liberating Allies. So how then to feed the people?
ReplyDeleteI thought it would be up your street. I heard the We Have Ways episode on Italy. They made very good points. The Italians took it from all quarters.
DeleteThey covered the loss of infrastructure on the film. Seems like food was mostly earned by women after the Allies took over. To cap it all Vesuvius erupted.
I’ll have to read the book.
Sounds very interesting, I know my dad was based there in 1944( making day trips to Anzio) and said it was quite tough, which he also used to describe Anzio, so that means pretty catastrophic!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain