Amazon.com Essentials:
Sophia Loren won a much-deserved Academy Award for her performance in
this
1960 classic by neo-realist filmmaker Vittorio de Sica. A last-minute
substitute for Anna Magnani, Loren reached deep within her own memories of
wartime experiences for her portrait of a widow struggling to survive in
battle-scarred Italy along with a teenage daughter (Eleonora Brown). The
film
begins with both women sharing romantic feelings toward a young man
(Jean-Paul Belmondo), a story line disrupted by the ravages of World War II
and the horrifying rape of both mother and daughter in a church by Allied
Moroccan soldiers. The aftermath of this atrocity finds both characters
dealing with even more, varying shades of grief, as the war seems to sap
all
that they had treasured and leaves them with only the bare bones of their
emotional and physical survival. De Sica's capacity to render tragedy both
with the starkest of strokes and the most delicate of emotions has never
been
more impressive than in this film, and Loren's shatteringly honest
portrayal
is a watershed in movie history. --Tom Keogh
