I girasoli (1970)

Director:

Vittorio De Sica

Writers:

Tonino Guerra (writer)
Giorgi Mdivani (writer)

Release Date:

24 September 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Filmed in Russia from the Kremlin to the Ukraine.

Plot:

An Italian woman conducts a desperate search for her husband, a soldier considered missing in action in Russia - like fifty thousand others during WWII.

Plot Keywords:

Russian Front | Soldier | Flashback | Factory Worker | Bigamy

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Sophia Loren	...	Giovanna
Marcello Mastroianni	...	Antonio
Lyudmila Savelyeva	...	Mascia
Galina Andreyeva	...	Valentina, Soviet official
Anna Carena	...	Antonio's Mother
Germano Longo	...	Ettore
Nadya Serednichenko	...	Woman in sunflower fields
Glauco Onorato	...	Returning soldier
Silvano Tranquilli	...	Italian worker in Russia
Marisa Traversi	...	Prostitute
Gunars Cilinskis	...	Russian Ministry Official
Carlo Ponti Jr.	...	Giovanna's Baby
Pippo Starnazza	...	Man of Enquiry Office
Dino Peretti
Giorgio Basso

Also Known As:

Les fleurs du soleil (France)
Sunflower (USA)

Runtime:

101 min | Portugal:98 min (cut version)

Country:

Italy | France | Soviet Union

Language:

Italian | English | Russian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | USA:G

Filming Locations:

Bereguardo, Pavia, Lombardia, Italy

Company:

Compagnia Cinematografica Champion

Movie Connections:

Referenced in El abrazo partido (2004)

Beautifully hypocrite

A credible melodrama, but a totally ridiculous story. However, we should understand it - the movie's pro-soviet propagandistic stance is explicit. Fact is that it's literally IMPOSSIBLE for any missing-in-action Italian (or German, if we come at that) soldier, to have been cutely integrated in the Russian society. The N.K.V.D. was everywhere, and any such foreigner would have been found in a matter of weeks (months, at most), and treated like a spy. The Georgian Butcher was reserving the same fate even to the Russian soldiers who fell prisoners to the enemy: his paranoia dictating that the only explanation for having survived was defection, they were considered by default traitors and sent to the Gulag. So, our poor Mastroianni here, far of happily living ever after with Savelieva, would have been deported to Vorkuta or Ekibastuz, as a spy, for 10 years (or, rather, 25 - these being the standard imprisoning terms). After being released (in case he survived the abuses of the extermination camps), he would have been forced to live in exile (forced domicile), still in some village of Siberia or the Central Asia deserts. No way in hell for him even to travel in some other Russian township, close by - while the idea of coming back to Italy for a visit is as ludicrous as sending him to Mars.

But, well, Guerra wrote the script before Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" was published, so he can be excused for being so ignorant about the Russian realities.