Definitely I think a film where it helped to have some context before watching. After the battle of Monte Cassino in WWII, some Moroccan troops under French colonial command, went on a massive rape spree in the surrounding countryside of Ciociaria, you can read about the numbers involved, but really it's beyond understanding. But to an Italian audience watching a WWII movie called La Ciociara (literally the woman from Ciociaria) I guess they would have known what was going to be happening in the movie. I was not aware of the incident and it just seemed like a bizarre and affronting denouement to the movie, too weird to invent. It turns out that once again, the truth is stranger than fiction. In Italy the victims are known as the Marocchinate, literally those given the Moroccan treatment.
The lead up to the outrage is always hinting at danger, but the movie is in fact quite sweet. It's about a lady and her daughter (Cesira and Rosetta) who return to the village of her humble origins from Rome whilst the Allies are bombing. They are both very lovely people, who meet Michele, a man in between their ages (played by Belmondo) who is an intellectual. There are some brilliant scenes for example when Cesira points out to Rosetta that Michele is a subversive, and when Rosetta asks what that means, Cesira says, "a nice man who doesn't want to work". And there she has it in a nutshell, despite barely being able to write. It occurs to me that all liberal education is really there for is to make up for natural deficits, but Cesira doesn't actually have those deficits. The movie just seemed full of natural wisdom. Although the movie shows how abject and shocking life can be, it also makes you fall in love with love, the way Cesira, Rosetta and Michele love each other is just so perfect. I also liked a movie that understood that an intellectual is just another of the pilgrims on the way to Canterbury.
Sophia Loren received the Best Actress Oscar here, the first time an Oscar had gone to a performance in a non-English language movie. Like Gillo Pontecorvo's Kapò, another Italian war movie from the same year it treads a dangerous ice by utilising formalism when depicting earth-shatteringly hideous events.
The lead up to the outrage is always hinting at danger, but the movie is in fact quite sweet. It's about a lady and her daughter (Cesira and Rosetta) who return to the village of her humble origins from Rome whilst the Allies are bombing. They are both very lovely people, who meet Michele, a man in between their ages (played by Belmondo) who is an intellectual. There are some brilliant scenes for example when Cesira points out to Rosetta that Michele is a subversive, and when Rosetta asks what that means, Cesira says, "a nice man who doesn't want to work". And there she has it in a nutshell, despite barely being able to write. It occurs to me that all liberal education is really there for is to make up for natural deficits, but Cesira doesn't actually have those deficits. The movie just seemed full of natural wisdom. Although the movie shows how abject and shocking life can be, it also makes you fall in love with love, the way Cesira, Rosetta and Michele love each other is just so perfect. I also liked a movie that understood that an intellectual is just another of the pilgrims on the way to Canterbury.
Sophia Loren received the Best Actress Oscar here, the first time an Oscar had gone to a performance in a non-English language movie. Like Gillo Pontecorvo's Kapò, another Italian war movie from the same year it treads a dangerous ice by utilising formalism when depicting earth-shatteringly hideous events.