The truce, last film directed by Francesco Rosi, is adapted from the 1963 novel of the same name (winner of the Campiello prize) by Primo Levi.
January 7, 1945. Nazi Germany is forced to defend itself against the arrival of Soviet troops on the one hand and the unstoppable advance of the allies on the other; German soldiers are ordered to leave the concentration camps located in Eastern Europe, to escape the arrival of the Soviets. Thus, the traces of the horrors committed in the concentration camps are erased by destroying all the official records and the deportees still alive are closed in the camps and left to their fate.
The deportees to the Auschwitz concentration camp also suffer the same fate and after being freed by the Soviets, they look for a way to return to their homes. Among them are the French, the Polish and even the Italians. One of them is Primo Levi, deported as a partisan and a Jew, who tells in first person the journey he had to face together with other Italian deportees in order to return to Italy, to Turin, his hometown. Their journey through Central Europe is full of unexpected events and often forces them to travel many kilometres on foot or on makeshift trains.
The group traveling with Levi is made up of Cesare, a braggart but outgoing and sociable Roman, Daniele, from Veneto and now without a family, exterminated by the Nazis. Then Ferrari, a professional thief, Unverdorben, a violinist, and D’Agata, a Sicilian. Of great importance is the encounter that the author has with the Greek Jew Mordo Nahum, sly and disillusioned who will make him understand many things with his acute way of surviving troubles.
After many misadventures, the group arrives in Munich, where Levi shows his Auschwitz deportee uniform to a German soldier captured and forced into forced labour inside the station. The latter bows as if to ask for forgiveness. The return to Turin is near, afterwards the writer will finally be able to hug his sister and mother again.
Genre: drama – historical
Cast
John Turturro: Primo Levi
Massimo Ghini: Cesare
Rade Šerbedžija: the Greek
Roberto Citran: Unverdorben
Claudio Bisio: Ferrari
Andy Luotto: D’Agata
Lorenza Indovina: Flora
Stefano Dionisi: Daniele
Luis Bacalov soundtrack
