Sunflower (1970)

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

Director:

Vittorio De Sica

Writers:

Tonino Guerra (story and screenplay) (as Antonio Guerra), Cesare Zavattini (story and screenplay)

Stars:

Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Lyudmila Saveleva

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sophia Loren	...	Giovanna
Marcello Mastroianni	...	Antonio
Lyudmila Saveleva	...	Mascia (as Ljudmila Saveljeva)
Galina Andreeva	...	Valentina Ivanovna - the Soviet official
Anna Carena	...	La madre di Antonio
Nadya Serednichenko	...	La contadina russa (as Nadja Cerednicenko)
Germano Longo	...	Ettore
Glauco Onorato	...	Il reduce
Silvano Tranquilli	...	L'operaio italiano
Marisa Traversi	...	La donna alla stazione
Gunars Cilinskis	...	Il funzionario russo (as Gunnar Zilinskij)
Giorgio Basso
Gianni Bortolotti
Umberto Di Grazia
Giuliano Girardi

Storyline

At the end of World War II, Giovanna, a war bride living near Milan refuses to accept that her husband, Antonio, missing on the Russian front, is dead. There's a flashback to their brief courtship near her hometown of Naples, his 12-day leave to marry her, ruses to keep from deployment, and the ultimate farewell. Some years after the war, still with no word from Antonio, Giovanna goes to Russia to find him, starting in the town near the winter battle when he disappeared. Armed with his photograph, what will she find?

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Plot Keywords:

soldier | russian front | flashback | eastern front | world war two | 

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Taglines:

A love story that spans two tempestuous decades in a motion picture of extraordinary power and enchantment!

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

Italy France Soviet Union USA

Language:

Italian English Russian

Release Date:

24 September 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sunflower

Filming Locations:

Bereguardo, Pavia, Lombardia, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Compagnia Cinematografica Champion, Les Films Concordia, Mosfilm

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min 98 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to the 'Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide', this was the first Italian film to be filmed mostly in Poltava, Ukraine.

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Goofs

Mascia tells Giovanna that when she found Antonio, he was hurt so badly that he had forgotten everything, including his own name. If that's true, then how did Mascia know his name was Antonio?

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Connections

Referenced in American Sexual Revolution (1971)

User Reviews

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.