Vittorio De Sica was a major figure of the Italian Neo Realist film movement after the Second World War. His best (and most well known) films are "Bycicle thief" (1948) and "Umberto D." (1952). Later he made good films as well but movies such as "Yesterday, today and tomorrow" (1963) and "La Ciociara" (1960) own more to the acting of Sophia Loren than to the directing of Vittorio De Sica.
"La Ciociara" is based on the novel "Two women" from Alberto Moravia. The story is situated at the end of the Second World War, The Facists losing ground and the Allied forces on the march in Italy. A mother (Sophia Loren) and her 13 years old daughter (Eleonora Brown) are on the run for the violence of war (i.e. Bombing of Rome).
Sophia Loren is fabulous as the mother guarding the honor of her young daughter against wandering groups of soldiers, if necessary at the cost of her own life. She really is a tiger-mother. Three years later Luchino Visconti would use the title "Il Gattopardo" for one of his films. The same title would not have been out of place here.
Jean Paul Belmondo plays an (all too) serious teacher kind of character for which both women fall. I think this is one of the most extreme anti type casting cases I ever saw, given the playboy like characters Belmondo used to play.
The first half of the film is rather slow and made me think of "La notte di San Lorenzo" (1982, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani). The film becomes more shocking (and in my opinion better) in the last half hour, starting with the rape by a bunch of soldiers and subsequently showing the reactions of both women.
The soldiers who raped the two women were black and I have a feeling that this influenced the rating of the film negatively because some reviewers interpreted this as a racist element. The rapists being black is however not based on the fantasy of Vittorio De Sica but on the novel of Alberto Moravia. Morovia on his part based his novel on the "Marocchinate", the mass rape and killings that happened after the battle of Monte Cassino (18 May 1944). This mass rape was mainly committed by the Moroccan Goumiers, colonial troops fighting for the French Liberation (and thus Allied) army.
"La Ciociara" is based on the novel "Two women" from Alberto Moravia. The story is situated at the end of the Second World War, The Facists losing ground and the Allied forces on the march in Italy. A mother (Sophia Loren) and her 13 years old daughter (Eleonora Brown) are on the run for the violence of war (i.e. Bombing of Rome).
Sophia Loren is fabulous as the mother guarding the honor of her young daughter against wandering groups of soldiers, if necessary at the cost of her own life. She really is a tiger-mother. Three years later Luchino Visconti would use the title "Il Gattopardo" for one of his films. The same title would not have been out of place here.
Jean Paul Belmondo plays an (all too) serious teacher kind of character for which both women fall. I think this is one of the most extreme anti type casting cases I ever saw, given the playboy like characters Belmondo used to play.
The first half of the film is rather slow and made me think of "La notte di San Lorenzo" (1982, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani). The film becomes more shocking (and in my opinion better) in the last half hour, starting with the rape by a bunch of soldiers and subsequently showing the reactions of both women.
The soldiers who raped the two women were black and I have a feeling that this influenced the rating of the film negatively because some reviewers interpreted this as a racist element. The rapists being black is however not based on the fantasy of Vittorio De Sica but on the novel of Alberto Moravia. Morovia on his part based his novel on the "Marocchinate", the mass rape and killings that happened after the battle of Monte Cassino (18 May 1944). This mass rape was mainly committed by the Moroccan Goumiers, colonial troops fighting for the French Liberation (and thus Allied) army.