PRODUCTIONS: REAL WAR

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Fabio Toncelli

SD Cinematografica

52 Min.

HD

When were the first real photographs of war taken? Now, more than a hundred and fifty years later, what do we really see of the wars that are fought in the world? And what did we see in this film over one hundred fifty years old?
Few people know that in the mid-19th century, on a balmy March day that heralded spring, a photographer snapped the first photograph of war, a conflict fought in a remote corner of the globe, on the shores of the Black Sea.
Since then, war has been described in many ways and its narration has evolved along two main lines: through technological advances in audiovisual production and through the attempt to manage the emotional and political impact that images of conflicts inevitably have in a society increasingly pervaded by omnipresent multimedia communication.
Strangely, some aspects of war now seem to be obscured, less effective in reaching the collective consciousness, despite a realism that sometimes seems to exceed a Hollywood movie, where soldiers film their own deaths and sequences that make deadly physical confrontations between soldiers look like a video game.
With a relentless narration that does not necessarily follow a chronological order, we recount a number of highly spectacular cases, using exceptional –and in some cases very rare and sometimes shocking – images. From some rare images of World War I, some even in colour, to the devastating bombing of the Monte Cassino Abbey and later the town of Cassino, taken from every angle, almost minute by minute, as if we were there, with its deafening sound and new footage. As well as the Vietnam war, up to the Gulf Wars and the almost cinematographic action of American troops and their allies in Afghanistan. In the end we discover that there may be more reality in an old yellowing photograph from almost a century ago than a shining image in splendid High Definition .