The story in ‘The Monuments Men‘ directed by George Clooney and released on screens in 2014 is worth telling. In the last year of World War II, a small group of Allied soldiers, most of them experts in the arts, were given the task of discovering the fate of the art treasures plundered by Nazi Germany in the countries under its control and saving as much as possible from destruction by the defeated Germans or from falling into the hands of the Russians as ‘war booty’. The not so well-known story is based on real facts. A book has been written about it, documentaries or television series were or may have been made. ‘The Monuments Men’, the fiction movie – as it came out – fails to make a good service to the story, despite investing a considerable amount of talent, especially in acting. By trying to make a film like and in the style of the war films of the ’60s, George Clooney almost completely misses the target due to the lack of a common narrative thread interesting enough to capture attention. In the 2010s, the collection of celebrity stars is no longer enough for public success or emotional impact.
Frank Stokes (George Clooney), the art expert who manages to persuade President Roosevelt to form a team of soldiers – less than half a platoon – to save Europe’s cultural treasures at war from destruction in the situation of answering, several times in this film, the question ‘is it worth sacrificing the life of a soldier to save a painting, a statue, or the tower of a medieval church?’ The problem is that the question and the answers are formulated through explicit spoken words rather than through convincing cinematic narration. The formation of the group of experts, most of them well past the age of carrying weapons, the training, the landing after the landing in Normandy, and their adventures in Europe in ruins still in the middle of a destructive war are approached in Hollywood style, with a dose of humor that cannot harm, but also with the schematism specific to film productions in the decades after the war, especially when it comes to negative characters (specifically the German officers). The film flows smoothly and pleasantly, the dialogues are nice and intelligent, but the lack of dramatic tension reduces the impact of the film. ‘The Monuments Men’ contains too much fiction for a docudrama and is too unassuming to be a memorable war film.
The cinematography is good and generously provides us with images of the continent in ruins in the final year of World War II, as well as short snapshots of famous works of art that are reconstructed and filmed with authenticity. The list of actors with famous names is impressive. Of all, only Cate Blanchett has enough material that allows her to create a substantial role. It is of course a pleasure to see Bill Murray, Matt Damon, Jean Dujardin and George Clooney himself at any time, but as a viewer I can only regret that their roles in this film are too schematic to allow me to remember their acting here as I have done so many other times. ‘The Monuments Men’ is a film with an interesting theme and an important message (‘culture matters even in the heat of the fiercest battles’), a pleasant film due mainly to the presence of actors that viewers can not get tired of seeing, but the result is less than the sum of talents and efforts put together.