Untitled Document
October 14, 2012
The Desert of the Tartars
a film by Dino Buzatti
****http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeHhjUJ2w-U&feature=related
I was really delighted to be able to watch this film again, thanks to a viewer, Rodolphe, and I immediately want to share this opportunity with my readers.
Let me skip the beauty of the images, the excellence of the staging, the richness of the cast: Vittorio Gassman, Jacques Perrin, Philippe Noiret, Laurent Terzieff, Fernando Grey, Trintignant, the originality of the angles, the lighting.
I find the film incomprehensible if read literally. It is a film set in a fortress with soldiers, weapons, horses. But there will be no siege, no assault, no battle. It is not the Alamo. Everything is in the waiting.
There are many comments online about this film, and about the book by Dino Buzatti (which he wrote in 1940), and in a way they overlap with mine.
It is an allegory of our societies. Lieutenant Drogo (Jacques Perrin) is assigned to his first post (which he says is by chance. He did not ask to be assigned there). His first impression is very negative and he immediately considers trying to get transferred. He talks about it to the second-in-command of the garrison, Mattis (the handsome Giuliano Gemma), who, understanding, immediately offers to have him given a medical certificate by the garrison doctor (Trintignant), under the pretext that his heart cannot stand the altitude. But for that, he will have to wait for a routine visit, in four months.
Forced to wait for four months, he discovers a garrison life as precise as sheet music. The soldiers are poorly dressed. Their condition contrasts with the splendor of the officers' uniforms, who dine every evening in full uniform and white gloves, to the sound of music from an orchestra. The scene where Drogo is introduced to the officers is impressive. Luxurious tableware, white tablecloth, silver candlesticks. This fortress is certainly a reflection of the inequality in our societies.
A character "Nathanson" is played by Fernando Grey (who has only four words to say in his role, when the general asks how he is: "well, very well, thank you"). He suffers from a spinal injury, which forces him to wear a steel corset. He moves with difficulty, is forced to sit during meetings. But among all the officers, he is the only one who has experienced ... a real battlefield, when there were still wars". Silent as a fish, he seems to suffer from a condition that causes spectacular episodes, which the doctor Rovin (Trintignant) can only relieve by giving him an injection, after Drogo has helped to subdue the poor man.
All these people hold different positions. Among the officers, there are two castes: aristocrats and non-aristocrats. Lieutenant Count Von Ammerling (Laurent Terzieff) is an aristocrat suffering from a disease that gradually weakens him. But he insists on "remaining at his post," to avoid admitting and accepting his weakness, to recognize that he is sick.
Discipline is extremely strict. It is regulated by the second-in-command Mattis (Giuliano Gemma), who never parts with his command stick, with which he salutes, something his successor will not do. The commander, Count Fillmore (Vittorio Gassman), delegates "the good functioning of the service" to him and appears rarely, except at dinner time, impressive, splendid in his black uniform. Presiding over these meals seems to summarize the essence of his duties.
Orders must be followed in the smallest details. This "strategic point," located at the far north of the Empire, is like cut off from the rest of the world. When Drogo takes his assignment, he kisses a young woman for the last time and says, "don't wait for me."
The Desert of the Tartars is a film without women. Drogo, like the other officers of the fort, is the son of a soldier. He therefore goes to be worthy of the family tradition. He will be accompanied by his young brother, who will say, "when I leave the military school, I hope I can join you there." It is "the most aristocratic fortress of the Empire."
This military post consists of two buildings. There is the fortress itself, which stands in the middle of a ruined city said to have once been ravaged by invaders from the northern desert, nicknamed "the Tartars."
Who are these "Tartars"? An unknown enemy. It is said that they came, centuries ago, from the nearby desert, took the fortress and ravaged the city. But is this a historical fact or a legend? No one knows. But Captain Ortiz (Max Von Sydow) claims to have seen them. At the time, he even had cannons fired, a very unusual act. As a result, he remained on duty for 18 years, "to wait for them." And also to prove to others that he was not mistaken.
A few hours away is a small fortress, located right on the border. It is permanently occupied by rotating detachments. There is a rising guard and a lowering guard.
These Tartars are there to give this fortress its reason for being, to constitute an eventual, unmeasurable threat, justify a deployment of forces, justify a constant tension, which excludes any laxity, any relaxation of discipline. They give the fortress its unity, its identity, which otherwise would remain a ... desert.
I will now focus on a passage of the film, where I discerned another allegory, different from the classic analyses, which see in this book, or film, the spectacle of men facing the passage of time, struggling against a death they await and which seizes them, one after another.
The Tartars are also mystery, what is distant, fleeting. One can only imagine them as aggressive.
One day, it is Drogo's turn to lead the detachment that will take position in the advanced fortress. When he is there, he sees, along with Sergeant Tronk and another soldier, Lazar, a mysterious white horse, which is walking at some distance. It cannot be a horse from the fortress, since there are only black horses there. He does not know what to do. Should he send soldiers to seize this unidentified horse, and thus be able to conduct an investigation, find out where this animal came from, which emerged from nowhere.
The sergeant reminds him that the fortress is just on the border and that going towards this horse would mean de facto entering the "territories of the Northern State." This could provoke a diplomatic incident "with incalculable consequences." He advises waiting. The hours pass. Drogo becomes increasingly annoyed but must resign himself to not violating the order.
The sergeant recalls a fact that will be the key to the drama that follows. When the rising or descending guards come and go, only the officer who commands them knows the password. What would happen if the officer fell ill? Could his men present themselves (especially at night) at the gates of the fortress? No, because they do not know the password, and the sergeant reminds, the enemy could have captured these men, or killed them and put on their uniforms.
Finally, this horse disappears. At dusk, Drogo brings back the ...