The Commander (15)
Directed by Edoardo De Angelis

ON the night of October 16 1940, during its first Atlantic patrol off the island of Madeira, the Italian submarine Cappellini sighted the Belgian steamer Kabalo carrying aircraft spare parts, and after unsuccessfully firing three torpedoes, sank her with its deck gun. 

Afterwards, the submarine approached a lifeboat containing 26 survivors and towed it for four days towards the Azores; when the boat started sinking after being damaged by the heavy seas, on the fourth day, the Italian captain, Salvatore Todaro had the survivors taken aboard his submarine and proceeded to Santa Maria Island, where they were safely landed in neutral territory. 

In a sweet scene the two sides bond over chips which the Belgians showed the Italian chef how to make, and to the Belgian officer who expresses his surprise for his sinker's humanitarian initiative, Todaro replies that he did it “because I am Italian.”

Co-written and directed by Edoardo De Angelis, this is a very simple and straightforward drama which explores a glimpse of humanity and kindness during the darkest of times. 

Pierfrancesco Favino lifts this otherwise run of the mill biopic with his compelling performance as Todaro, who disobeyed his Fascist leaders’ orders to do the right thing. He has suffered a catastrophic back injury and is forced to wear an iron truss that is applied with the doctor’s comment: “Fascism is pain, huh?”

While the film cherry-picks one rare incident of humanity from Italy’s fascist past it doesn’t cut corners ideologically. No attempt is made to hide the fascist rhetoric that Todaro uses, and he is adored by his men. But the complexity of his character is brought to the fore and what distinguishes him is his knowledge that the laws of the sea outweigh the dictates of war.

The script was researched from personal letters of Todaro to his wife, and after the incident he writes to her: “Dearest Rina, today is an auspicious day. Together, we and our enemies saved each other.”

Given the numbers who die in small boats every week in the Mediterranean the true context of this remarkable story is as much that of the contemporary migrant crisis as that of WWII. 

In cinemas December 6