Engrossing or Boring as Hell SPOILER ALERT

When I first saw this film on Amazon I decided to purchase both the book and the movie. The book arrived first, and I finished it before watching the film. I agree due to the "dull" nature of the story it may not appeal to some as a motion picture, but I think it is clear that both the novel and the film(which is a mostly solid screening of the book) will resonate with some folks and others will hate it.
Unfortunately I think people who go into this story looking for "a scathing critique of military life" as the back of the Vera Mundi edition of the novel states or as the jewel case for the dvd puts it "an anti-war film in the tradition of Apocalypse Now" will be highly disappointed since the author, Dino Buzzati aimed his themes of desolation and destructive routine squarely at the reader/viewer, whatever his or her profession. I feel that Buzzati/Zurlini(the director) are really giving us a fundamental story/question about life and happiness. I do not see this as simply a story about vain-glorious army officers(indeed in the novel, it is stated several times that Fort Bastiani is one of the worst assigments for officers seeking military fame and glory), but rather as a story about how, as one reviewer put it, "the individual mind can only react with ever more frenetic attempts to generate hope, the most preposterous hopes, out of nothing, to enchant itself with whatever desert terrain is available" (http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/parks_w01.html)
Buzzati spent two years in the Italian army and then spent the rest of his days as a journalist,novelist and illustrator. The novel is journalistic in its style, but, like all great stories, is more elusive it its meaning. Buzzati said he wrote Desert of the Tartars as an allegory of the numbing routine of office/military life: he actually cited his work as a journalist, not his time as an officer-cadet, as his primary inspiration for the novel. I think if you go into this story expecting an epic film or an anti-war/anti-military diatribe you will be disappointed, because I really feel(and I do not claim to be this to be an original idea, but would cite book reviews and Buzzati's own words) the story is more about those people(workaholics as we might call some of them today) who get so caught up in their professional routines that they find themselves with tunnel vision(Buzzati makes clear that the view from the fort is like tunnel in the novel, with mountains on both sides) unwilling to take risks, try new things or otherwise think or act creatively "outside the box"; instead they so exaggerate the importance of their own work, and the artificial boundries and regulations that govern it, that they ultimatly delude themselves, and those around them, into a sense grand importance to their work. These collective delusions(the Tartars)manifest themselves behaviorally in either a inflated sense self importance(Matti, Simeoni)or simply a passive acceptance of the less than desirable, humdrum existence, with the hope of greater(or even different) things to come (Drogo, Ortiz, Tronk); both of which should resonate with anyone who has ever been employed by someone else for any long periods of time .
Another overarching theme in the novel, more so than in the movie, is a sense that our family/personal lives too often take a back seat to professional/public obligations(once again Tronk, Ortiz and Drogo are the best examples of this). A fact which Buzzati fairly clearly implies is far more harmful to a person when age/infirmity/death catches up with them: Captain Hortiz's final act in the film and Drogo's fate. In the end though, this is a difficult film because, unlike the novel, which the spartan story line is made more intresting by strightforward story telling and by getting in to the mind of the characters, the visual medium sometimes cannot translate these tales as well on to the screen. Still, as a former military officer who once served on a desloate border outpost, I guess I can relate to a little more to the story, than perhaps someone who has never served in the military and does not see the film's themes as relevant to them.

Really? I found it quite riviting, and downright tense at points. I was wondering constantly, who's out there at the edge of the fort? The army from the neighbouring nation? The Tartars? Was it just the over-active imagination of the officers? And there's this weird schism between the denial of an impending attack, and the anticipation of it.

I think that's a little harsh on Drogo, he only really wants to leave in the beginning, when he's young and probably feels too bored at the outpost. He gives a good attempt at leaving later on, but seems resigned to staying at the desert after being declined his reassignment. I can plainly understand why he wouldn't want to leave at the end, for one sensing that he'd probably not survive the journey, and two -if you had spent years at some outpost waiting for the first attack in decades, wouldn't you want to stay to fight in it, or maybe just to witness it?

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