The film Even If Hell Came, which had its Asian premiere at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival on October 28 in the Competition section, depicts a slice of Italian history that is not readily talked about in Italy or elsewhere. The story focuses on a sole member of the Resistance, referred to colloquially as the Partisans, who held the northern, more mountainous region of the country while the southern region had succumbed to fascism during WWII. In the film, the Partisan soldier, Gio, is beset by both German troops “cleaning up” the region in the late fall of 1944, even though their cause was already considered lost, and the Italian army under Mussolini.
 
“This story is very important to me,” said the director, Samuele Rossi, during the post-screening Q&A session, “because it shows the spirit of resistance. During the time that the movie takes place, the northern part of Italy was left behind. It was the young people who rallied and eventually liberated the country, and I wanted to show what they had to go through. Ten years ago, I made a documentary and talked to Partisans who are now in their 80s and 90s, and I listened to their stories, which are embedded in the film. It’s not just one story, but many stories that went into this movie.”
 
Gio (played by Luca Tanganelli), whose unit is wiped out by German soldiers right at the start of the film, is left to fend for himself during the harsh winter and watches as comrades die and civilians are slaughtered in front of his eyes. Nevertheless, he is commanded by his superiors, whom we never see, to hold a derelict farmhouse and wait for orders. He sometimes believes that he is the indirect cause of many of the deaths he witnesses, and his will to continue the fight is continually tested by a sense of futility. And yet, he keeps on going.
 
Gio’s predicament is perfectly symbolized by a rotten apple that he consumes ravenously at one point. A TIFF audience member wondered if it was a biblical allusion. Rossi explained, “I thought it was very important because of the relationship between war and hunger. There are two elements that the Resistance has to contend with: hunger and cold. That is the meaning of the rotten apple, and I’m happy that someone noticed that.”
 
Luca Tanganelli who plays Gio, was also on stage during the Q&A, and commented on how physically challenging the shoot was. As the director pointed out, everything was shot in natural locations under the most trying of circumstances, which he felt was the only way to convey truthfully what the Partisans had to go through.
 
“We had to immerse ourselves in the experience of the Resistance,” said Tanganelli. “There is definitely a political message at play, but more importantly it’s the human factor we had to show. Acting under such circumstances created the emotional dimension I needed to put across. This is the story of my grandparents, the Italian past that we don’t acknowledge. We have to make people understand that history, recall those memories, and bring it to the world.”
 
One audience member, a well-known film critic, asked the director about several scenes in which characters we have already seen die reappear in the frame as ghosts. “It’s the first time I’ve been asked that question,” said Rossi. “Many people in the Resistance died without mention. I want them to be remembered, so even in the movie, they reappear as memories, whether Gio sees them or not. In many of these scenes only the audience is meant to see them, but still Gio somehow feels their presence, which is what keeps him going. The dead spur the Resistance, make it persevere. Gio has to keep going if only for their sake, their memory.”
 
Throughout the conversation, Rossi made reference to wars currently raging in the world, driving home the point that the struggle for freedom embodied by the Resistance is ongoing.
 
“Our movie is meant to remind us all that war is a tragedy,” he said at one point. “There is no greater message that we can communicate.”
 
Competition: Even If Hell Came
Q&A Guests: Samuele Rossi (Director/Screenplay/Producer), Luca Tanganelli (Actor)