Il deserto dei tartari

The young lieutenant Drogo (Jacques Perrin) is transferred to the Bastiani fortress, a remote desert outpost on the border of a nameless empire. The garrison is prepared to repel an imaginary enemy. But year after year, officers and soldiers wait in vain for the moment of truth. The supposed enemy has never appeared. The men fill the void with superficial activities and strict adherence to behavioral rituals. Hierarchical structures and rigid traditions dictate their behavior. Emotions and vitality appear to have died out. Dressing his protagonists in Austro-Hungarian uniforms, Zurlini set his adaptation of Dino Buzzati’s Kafkaesque novel The Tartar Steppe, which explores military consciousness, the acceptance of an unalterable fate and the passage of time, in the period between 1906 and 1914. This atmospheric, quiet film with an international star-studded cast was shot on location at the 16th-century mudbrick Bam Citadel on the Iranian-Afghan border.