Heiners Filmseiten – Miracle at St. Anna (en)

Miracle at St. Anna

German title: Buffalo Soldiers ’44 – Das Wunder von St. Anna
Francaise title: Miracle à Santa Anna
Russian title: Чудо святой Анны
Original title: Miracle at St. Anna

War drama – USA, Italy
Production year: 2007
Movie length: 154 minutes

Director: Spike Lee
Writer: James McBride, James McBride
Cinematograph: Matthew Libatique
Music: Terence Blanchard

Movie description:

Christmas 1983. A New York postal clerk, a Buffalo Soldier in Italy in World War II, shoots a stranger. In his apartment, police find a valuable Italian marble head, missing since the war. Flashbacks tell the story of four Black soldiers who cross Tuscany’s Serchio River, dodging German and friendly fire. With a shell-shocked boy in tow, they reach the village of Colognora. Orders via radio tell them to capture a German soldier for questioning about a counteroffensive. In the village, a beautiful woman, partisans that include a traitor and a local legend, the boy, and the story of a recent massacre connect to the postal worker’s anguish forty years later. And the miracle?

Spike Lee’s World War II film Miracle at St. Anna begins in 1983 with Hector Negron, a veteran of that war, unexpectedly shooting a customer dead. Police discover that the suspect, a quiet postal worker, kept a statue head worth millions of dollars in his apartment. An eager young reporter interviews Negron in his cell about the mysterious artifact. While serving in the all-minority 92nd »Buffalo Soldier« Division, Negron and three comrades managed to sneak deep into enemy territory in Italy. One of the men, Sam Train, picked the head up while they were serving in Florence and believes it brings him good luck. Negron, Train, and Bishop Cummings, along with their sergeant, Aubrey Stamps, take refuge in the Italian village of St. Anna, harbored by locals who are resisting the Nazis – who themselves surround the area. Train also protects an injured Italian boy he discovers while investigating a seemingly abandoned dwelling. Eventually, the soldiers make contact with their superiors, and are ordered to capture a German so that he may be interrogated about an upcoming attack.
Lee adapted »Miracle at St. Anna« from a novel by James McBride, who also penned the screenplay.

Boy Actors