Many Wars Ago

“They fought by the rule book... and died by the thousands!”

On the Alpine Front in the First World War, Italian soldiers leave their mountain trenches again and again to storm an enemy fortress, and each attempt ends the same way. Francesco Rosi adapts Emilio Lussu's memoir of the Asiago fighting, with Gian Maria Volonté among the officers. Lieutenant Sassu (Mark Frechette) watches the dead pile up under Gen. Leone (Alain Cuny) and starts to ask what he is actually there to do.