A very beautiful and tragic film by Mauro Bolognini and a magnificent role for Claudia Cardinale, that of Angiolina, a free and strong young woman.
Quite the opposite of the central character, Emilio, blinded by a childish egoism and teenage fantasies. He does not want to see in the beautiful Angionlina, with whom he falls in love, anything else than a naive and innocent young girl. Torn between physical passion and the fear of entering into a truly lasting relationship, this pathetic character fails to see that she is in fact a clever and cunning woman living of prostitution. Even when his co-workers and his best friend, the playboy Stefano, try to warn him, he refuses the obvious and locks himself in his idealistic views. He is so closed in on himself, his passions and his fears, that he does not even see his poor sister Amalia wasting away by his side.
The character of Amalia is for me the most touching of the film. This shy and clumsy old maid who falls in love with the playboy Stefano. Emilio, who transfers his own fears to his sister, prevents his friend from seeing her again and thus provokes her despair which will lead her to a tragic end.
The end of the film tells the whole story again: The broken and humiliated Emilio wallows on the ground as Angiolina leaves, true to herself and free in the arm of a passing new man ...
If the film is imbued with gravity, melancholy and sadness, it is never heavy or exaggerated in the pathos, on the contrary, everything is treated with finesse and subtlety. The text read in voice-over harmoniously matches the sublime images of the city of Trieste, magnificently photographed.
If the film is imbued with gravity, melancholy and sadness, it is never heavy or exaggerated in the pathos, on the contrary, everything is treated with finesse and subtlety. The text read in voice-over harmoniously matches the sublime images of the city of Trieste, magnificently photographed.