Drama
War
A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.
Directors
Sophia Loren
Cesira
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Michele Di Libero
Raf Vallone
Giovanni
Eleonora Brown
Rosetta
Carlo Ninchi
Filippo, il padre di Michele
Andrea Checchi
un fasciste
Pupella Maggio
un fermier
Emma Baron
Maria
Antonella Della Porta
La madre impazzita
Bruna Cealti
une évacuée
Luciano Pigozzi
Scimmione
Franco Balducci
il tedesco nel pagliaio
Mario Frera
Peppuccio
Curt Lowens
ufficiale tedesco batteria contraerea
Directors
User reviews1
Review
Featured review
I think you could dress Sophia Loren in an old sack and she'd still ooze a personality and charisma that serves her really well in this heart-rending wartime story. She is the widowed "Cesira" who, with bombs falling all around them, decides it's best to get her young daughter "Rosetta" (Eleonora Brown) out of danger. Getting back to her home town of Sant'Eufemia together is a journey fraught with risk but upon their arrival at this Nazi occupied village, they begin to live what might pass for a normal life. "Cesira" even meets the romantic, if a little naive, younger "Michele" (Jean-Paul Belmondo) but as the food starts to run out and rumours of an Allied advance begin to substantiate, she decides that maybe a return to Rome is best as they are soon all targets for bombing raids. It's this return trip that exposes them to the abject horrors not just of warfare but of human nature at it's worst too. The full effects of warfare - both physical and psychological are visited on these two women as they seek safety where there is little to be had, and as the palpable sense of tension and fear builds up, Loren raises her game delivering a strong and plausible performance as a mother desperate to protect her daughter - who maybe doesn't quite appreciate the dangers they are in. Raf Vallone's "Giovanni" contributes sparingly but effectively and the whole style of Vittorio De Sica's intensely photographed photography and storytelling presents us with as gripping a tale of the ghastliness of war as I've ever seen. Not an easy watch, but a poignant one.
Geronimo196729 Apr, 2024
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