Two Women (1960)
(La Ciociara)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: bw 101m
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Cast: Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown, Raf Vallone
Synopsis:
1944: a Roman grocer and her daughter leave the capital to get away from the bombings. Their train is soon immobilised, however, and they set off into the hills they know well, where they are taken in by the impoverished peasantry. They have brushes with the retreating Fascists and the Germans, and finding food is hard, but their greatest danger comes from the advancing Allies.
Review:
Striking portrait of the impact of war on the citizenry, adapted by Cesare Zavattini from a novel by Alberto Moravia: impeccable neo-realist credentials, then, and indeed the film sits in a continuum all the way from Rome Open City. De Sica's camera does not miss a trick when it comes to observing human behaviour, from the furtive glance at Loren's décolletage by a train passenger to an elderly woman's despair at the position in which she and her son are placed by a sponging German officer. Interestingly Belmondo's presence strikes a slightly false note as an international star, where Sophia's does not, and when she is on screen she commands attention, inhabiting her role so completely as if informed by her own upbringing and experiences at Pozzuoli during the war. The rape and its aftermath, though airbrushed now, were daring at the time, and she evokes fountains of pathos as the mother whose 'darling' has been so cruelly snatched from her.
(La Ciociara)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: bw 101m
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Cast: Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown, Raf Vallone
Synopsis:
1944: a Roman grocer and her daughter leave the capital to get away from the bombings. Their train is soon immobilised, however, and they set off into the hills they know well, where they are taken in by the impoverished peasantry. They have brushes with the retreating Fascists and the Germans, and finding food is hard, but their greatest danger comes from the advancing Allies.
Review:
Striking portrait of the impact of war on the citizenry, adapted by Cesare Zavattini from a novel by Alberto Moravia: impeccable neo-realist credentials, then, and indeed the film sits in a continuum all the way from Rome Open City. De Sica's camera does not miss a trick when it comes to observing human behaviour, from the furtive glance at Loren's décolletage by a train passenger to an elderly woman's despair at the position in which she and her son are placed by a sponging German officer. Interestingly Belmondo's presence strikes a slightly false note as an international star, where Sophia's does not, and when she is on screen she commands attention, inhabiting her role so completely as if informed by her own upbringing and experiences at Pozzuoli during the war. The rape and its aftermath, though airbrushed now, were daring at the time, and she evokes fountains of pathos as the mother whose 'darling' has been so cruelly snatched from her.
(La Ciociara)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: bw 101m
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Cast: Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown, Raf Vallone
Synopsis:
1944: a Roman grocer and her daughter leave the capital to get away from the bombings. Their train is soon immobilised, however, and they set off into the hills they know well, where they are taken in by the impoverished peasantry. They have brushes with the retreating Fascists and the Germans, and finding food is hard, but their greatest danger comes from the advancing Allies.
Review:
Striking portrait of the impact of war on the citizenry, adapted by Cesare Zavattini from a novel by Alberto Moravia: impeccable neo-realist credentials, then, and indeed the film sits in a continuum all the way from Rome Open City. De Sica's camera does not miss a trick when it comes to observing human behaviour, from the furtive glance at Loren's décolletage by a train passenger to an elderly woman's despair at the position in which she and her son are placed by a sponging German officer. Interestingly Belmondo's presence strikes a slightly false note as an international star, where Sophia's does not, and when she is on screen she commands attention, inhabiting her role so completely as if informed by her own upbringing and experiences at Pozzuoli during the war. The rape and its aftermath, though airbrushed now, were daring at the time, and she evokes fountains of pathos as the mother whose 'darling' has been so cruelly snatched from her.