The island the movie is set on is called Megísti in Italian, Mes in Turkish and Kastellorizo in Greek. It is the easternmost inhabited Greek island and is located just 1 mile off the coast of Turkey.
Gabriele Salvatores and the actors visited several islands before finding the right one for the shot: they chose the last one they visited, Kastellorizo, some 125 km east of Rhodes, because it was almost uninhabited, still showing damage from the war, and additionally there was an airstrip, as required by the script. Diego Abatantuono said that they arrived on a small plane, and were immediately struck by the beauty of the island, even before landing.
The movie has been sometimes criticized for perpetuating the myth known as 'Italiani, Brava Gente' (Italians, Good Fellows), which is described as a form of historical revisionism, part of processing the defeat of Italy and the Fascist Regime after WWII, for omitting to depict brutalities committed by Fascists during WWII.
However, the main theme the director and writer were interested in exploring was escape, just as Salvatores's two previous movies which are part of an ideal trilogy.
In the short story collection Sagapo which served as an inspiration for the script, war is employed as a backdrop for the recollections of the author, and only in one instance a fight is depicted. The title itself, Sagapo, is a phonetic spelling, used by Italian soldiers, of the Greek expression "Se agapo!" (Greek alphabet unsupported), which means "I love you" in a romantic sense.
The general tone and thematic interest of this dramedy, are established in a voice-over in the opening:
"They were sending us on a mission in Megisti, an island lost in the Aegean. The smallest, the farthest. Strategic importance: zero.
It was an an OC Mission, Observation and Connection. We had been tasked with taking the island and reporting any sightings. They had given me a group of men taken here and there. Survivors of battles lost, drifters from disbanded regiments, a platoon of conscripts, like me, who had survived thus far by pure chance."
When introducing the men, the Lieutenant describes mule handler Strazzabosco and the Munari brothers, as simple mountain folks who never saw the sea before, establishing the unit as a ragtag team of scaredy-cats, innocuous simpletons who couldn't shoot straight if their life depended on it, carried about by the waves of history and fate, rather than ruthless conquerors imbued by a colonialist ideology.
About Claudio Bisio's character: "Then there was Corrado Noventa, the deserter. He already fled several times. He wanted to go back home because his wife was with child. Last time they caught him, it was at the border between Albania and Yugoslavia, while trying to walk his way back into Italy."
The lack of a clear goal or vision for the supposed invaders, is further reinforced by the LT noting: "We were all about the age when you're still unsure whether to become a family man or get yourself lost in the world."
The non-existent combat-readiness of the troops, who lack discipline and structure, looking more like a band of friends on a road trip than a well-oiled, lethal military unit, is reiterated all throughout the movie, and foreshadowed by an exchange during the opening, when the Lieutenant's attendant worriedly asks "Will there be any shooting?" - "Let's hope not" is the LT's response.
However, the main theme the director and writer were interested in exploring was escape, just as Salvatores's two previous movies which are part of an ideal trilogy.
In the short story collection Sagapo which served as an inspiration for the script, war is employed as a backdrop for the recollections of the author, and only in one instance a fight is depicted. The title itself, Sagapo, is a phonetic spelling, used by Italian soldiers, of the Greek expression "Se agapo!" (Greek alphabet unsupported), which means "I love you" in a romantic sense.
The general tone and thematic interest of this dramedy, are established in a voice-over in the opening:
"They were sending us on a mission in Megisti, an island lost in the Aegean. The smallest, the farthest. Strategic importance: zero.
It was an an OC Mission, Observation and Connection. We had been tasked with taking the island and reporting any sightings. They had given me a group of men taken here and there. Survivors of battles lost, drifters from disbanded regiments, a platoon of conscripts, like me, who had survived thus far by pure chance."
When introducing the men, the Lieutenant describes mule handler Strazzabosco and the Munari brothers, as simple mountain folks who never saw the sea before, establishing the unit as a ragtag team of scaredy-cats, innocuous simpletons who couldn't shoot straight if their life depended on it, carried about by the waves of history and fate, rather than ruthless conquerors imbued by a colonialist ideology.
About Claudio Bisio's character: "Then there was Corrado Noventa, the deserter. He already fled several times. He wanted to go back home because his wife was with child. Last time they caught him, it was at the border between Albania and Yugoslavia, while trying to walk his way back into Italy."
The lack of a clear goal or vision for the supposed invaders, is further reinforced by the LT noting: "We were all about the age when you're still unsure whether to become a family man or get yourself lost in the world."
The non-existent combat-readiness of the troops, who lack discipline and structure, looking more like a band of friends on a road trip than a well-oiled, lethal military unit, is reiterated all throughout the movie, and foreshadowed by an exchange during the opening, when the Lieutenant's attendant worriedly asks "Will there be any shooting?" - "Let's hope not" is the LT's response.
Film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel revealed on The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986) and Later with Bob Costas (1988) in 1992 to have walked out of this movie after a private screening. When the movie won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, they still vowed to not watch the movie again.
While the vessel carrying the troops in the movie, is shown to be a supply ship, RN Garibaldi operated by the Regia Marina (Royal Navy) during WWII, was a Duca degli Abruzzi-class cruiser. In 1941 the Garibaldi participated in the Battle of Cape Matapan but was never sunk, unlike established in the film by a radio intercept, according to which the Garibaldi and a second unit were destroyed with no survivors left.