Battlefield

The First World War is drawing to a close. Two Army doctors, and childhood friends, work in the same military hospital where the seriously wounded come in every day from the front. Many of them, however, have self-inflicted wounds—impostors who would do anything not to return to the battlefield. From an upper-middle-class family, with a father who dreams of a future in politics for him, Stefano is his own brand of cop in addition to being a physician, and is obsessed with these self-harmers. Giulio is apparently more understanding and tolerant, but he is uncomfortable at the sight of blood, is more inclined towards research work, and would have preferred a career in biology. Anna, their friend since university, volunteers for the Red Cross, a hard job that she carries out with determination, while aware that it’s the price she’s made to pay for being a woman. In those days, without an influential family backing her up, it was hard for a woman to get a degree in medicine. Meanwhile, something strange is happening among the patients: many of them are mysteriously getting worse. Somebody might be purposely causing complications to their wounds, so that the soldiers may be sent home, even crippled, even mutilated, as long as they don’t make it back to the combat zone. There is a saboteur inside the hospital. Anna is the first to suspect so. But right towards the end of the conflict a sort of infection starts spreading at the front, striking down more people than the enemy weapons. And it soon spreads over to the civilian population... (Venice International Film Festival)