Captain Corelli's Mandolin英文影评

Captain Corelli's Mandolin中文译名：《柯莱利上尉的曼陀林》《战地情人》

If you've been longing to visit the Greek islands but haven't the time or money to make the journey, you could do worse than spend a couple of hours soaking up the scenery in ''Captain Corelli's Mandolin.'' Filmed largely on Cephalonia, the island that is the setting of Louis de Bernières's much-loved 1994 novel, ''Corelli's Mandolin'' (from which the film was adapted), the movie shimmers with a bluish-gold luminescence reflected from the turquoise waters of the Ionian Sea. This light lends the craggy landscape a hot coppery radiance that seems to emanate from inside the earth. Cinematographically (John Toll supervised), the movie is a glorious ode to the sun-baked island on which it was filmed.

Although the drama that storms across this rugged paradise encompasses a war and a major earthquake, not to mention oodles of star-crossed love, little of it comes to life. Directed by John Madden (''Shakespeare in Love''), ''Captain Corelli's Mandolin'' wants to be a lofty, red-blooded wartime epic in the style of ''The English Patient,'' daubed with ''Zorba the Greek'' earth tones. But as the movie methodically plods forward on a screenplay (by Shawn Slovo) consisting entirely of clichés and watered-down exposition, it becomes sadly apparent that its only reliable asset is the gorgeous view.

The high-powered Hollywood cast struggling with adopted Greek and Italian accents may not be embarrassing. But the romantic chemistry, in a movie that depends on that chemistry, fizzles. Besides the history, which is cursorily sketched, the movie has little else to grab on to. There simply isn't enough time for significant character development. That's one reason why the characters (with one exception) don't seem very intelligent.

The story -- which begins in 1940 and ends in the 1950's -- is, among other things, the tale of an enchanted isle's devastation and ultimate resilience. The spirit of the place is embodied by Dr. Iannis (John Hurt), the wise local physician who occasionally narrates the film (he's the smartest one) and whose beautiful daughter Pelagia (Penélope Cruz) is the focus of all the romantic turbulence.

Just as the war is breaking out, Pelagia falls in love with Mandras (Christian Bale), a handsome fisherman who abruptly leaves to fight Mussolini's forces in Albania and all but disappears for half the movie. Since Mandras is illiterate, he can't read or respond to her impassioned letters.

Meanwhile, the island is occupied by an Italian force led by the happy-go-lucky, opera-loving Capt. Antonio Corelli (Nicolas Cage), who has little heart for war. The captain, whose prized possession is a mandolin, which he plays adroitly, also leads a soldierly opera chorus. And the movie's several scenes of Corelli and his jolly band linking arms and belting Italian arias give some of the early moments a bizarre musical-comedy flavor that suggests ''The Student Prince Goes to Cephalonia.''

Corelli has eyes for Pelagia the moment he sees her. It takes her a while to realize that the easygoing Italian occupiers mean no harm. But once she does and is seduced by a ditty he composes especially for her, the two become lovers. The Germans are another story. As the Italians who have surrendered to the Allies are about to leave, the Germans, who continue to fight, arrive to take over the occupation. After promising the Italians safe passage home, they savagely betray their former allies and ravage the island. By this time, Mandras has returned as a Greek partisan leader. The movie conveniently omits the fact that in the novel he has become a raving Marxist.

As Corelli, Mr. Cage shucks off his usual hangdog torpor to convey a flavor of his character's ebullient spirits in the first half of the film. But once things turn serious, the actor's signature expression of vague consternation returns to his face and he becomes frustratingly opaque.

Ms. Cruz, who was so dazzling in Pedro Almodóvar's ''All About My Mother,'' may be Hollywood's girl of the month right now. But she has yet to demonstrate much acting skill in any movie that requires her to speak English. Although she is better here than in ''Blow'' and in ''All the Pretty Horses'' (her feisty, loose-limbed tomboy stride evokes her character's spunk), she remains more decorative than dramatic.

Of the three principals, Mr. Bale is the most comfortable speaking in a foreign accent. And his performance emits occasional sparks of the primitive, flashing-eyed vitality that Hollywood deems quintessentially Greek. But probably no actor could transcend the turgid romantic mush stuffed into the mouths of these three. The inevitable after-the-war reunion scene between two of them is so clumsily written and played as to be laughable.

The film's desperate need for compression also takes its toll on battle and earthquake sequences, which unfold as hurried montages that barely have time to register before the movie rushes back to catch up with the characters walking dazedly through the rubble. It speaks volumes about the film's misplaced sense of priorities that so much more care is devoted to an early sequence in which Corelli detonates a rusted old bomb from World War I that washes up on the shore than to the battles and natural disasters that devastate the island and forever change the inhabitants' lives.

''Captain Corelli's Mandolin'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has flashes of nudity and some gore.

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