The film describes the life of a lower middle class family in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Rome, just after the liberation of the capital. We have the husband ( Valerio Mastandrea ), the wife Delia ( played by Paola Cortellesi ), the father of Delia's husband and father-in-law ( Giorgio Colangeli ), we have a grown-up daughter, perhaps eighteen ( Romana Vergano ), who is unusually mature for the age and with a strong and determined character, we then have 2 young children aged 7/8, full of life and healthy selfishness, carefree, who are always playing. There are also neighbors gossiping in the courtyard where they sit to chat and do small jobs
Almost the entire first part of the film is dedicated to describing Delia, the mother of the family, who is always active: she gets up first and prepares breakfast for everyone; she then goes for injections, she does some sewing and mending work, she makes her own clothes at home, works in an umbrella factory, then she goes shopping, and prepares lunch.
However, we don't know much about the husband, for example we don't know his profession, we only know that he enters the house to criticize or beat his wife, then goes out and goes to have fun with friends at the bar, or elsewhere
I really liked the description of neighborhood life, for example you see Delia walking on a wide sidewalk and as she walks you see many other activities that are carried out outdoors: for example we have people cutting hair, or shaving, people selling baskets of flowers, people doing small jobs or small repairs. The description of the environments and the climate of those years is perfect and thanks also to the "black and white" the film recalls and is linked to the neorealist tradition of post-war Italian cinema
Scenes of violence within the home are always announced as thunder announces a storm; in this case children are removed, the windows are closed and the curtains are drawn, a sort of isolation is created, and then a dance begins between the husband and wife filled with acts of violence towards the woman. The slow motion ballet makes the scene grotesque and tries to represent the gesture in a less brutal way, which however remains extremely serious.
The "clue" scene is the invitation of the future in-laws to an official lunch; the tone of the narrative always remains very light and comical "gags" are often included, for example the scene of the meatballs being hard and almost inedible for the future son-in-law's family
In conclusion, a lower middle class family on the outskirts of Rome in the post-war period is described; with great realism, rather than thinking or talking about politics, this family thinks above all about scraping together the means of sustenance; I think the choice by the Italian ruling class of those years to avoid extremist turns and to try to recreate a nucleus of national cohesion was very wise They were restless years, people often kept their weapons from the civil and partisan war and there was a strong tendency to take justice into their own hands; at the same time there was the disintegration of the institutional apparatus, of the police and public order forces whose functions were carried out by American soldiers; however, there was also a great desire to do, to rebuild and improve, a great desire for freedom, peace, hope for a better future. In that same period and still in Rome, Rossellini filmed "Roma, open city" on the last acts of the Nazi occupation in Italy; there were no means of public transport such as buses and rail connections were poor; the grain, the main source of sustenance, had to arrive by ship from the United States and was stored in port silos, in the cities many houses had been destroyed, the streets were full of rubble and many people lived in wooden shacks
The empathy that the spectator feels towards the female character, that is Delia, is remarkable and the emotional involvement in the story is pleasant; we have the pleasure of witnessing the reconstruction of a period of our history and above all, an extremely positive fact, it is the images that tell the story, as it must be when the expressive medium is cinema.
Almost the entire first part of the film is dedicated to describing Delia, the mother of the family, who is always active: she gets up first and prepares breakfast for everyone; she then goes for injections, she does some sewing and mending work, she makes her own clothes at home, works in an umbrella factory, then she goes shopping, and prepares lunch.
However, we don't know much about the husband, for example we don't know his profession, we only know that he enters the house to criticize or beat his wife, then goes out and goes to have fun with friends at the bar, or elsewhere
I really liked the description of neighborhood life, for example you see Delia walking on a wide sidewalk and as she walks you see many other activities that are carried out outdoors: for example we have people cutting hair, or shaving, people selling baskets of flowers, people doing small jobs or small repairs. The description of the environments and the climate of those years is perfect and thanks also to the "black and white" the film recalls and is linked to the neorealist tradition of post-war Italian cinema
Scenes of violence within the home are always announced as thunder announces a storm; in this case children are removed, the windows are closed and the curtains are drawn, a sort of isolation is created, and then a dance begins between the husband and wife filled with acts of violence towards the woman. The slow motion ballet makes the scene grotesque and tries to represent the gesture in a less brutal way, which however remains extremely serious.
The "clue" scene is the invitation of the future in-laws to an official lunch; the tone of the narrative always remains very light and comical "gags" are often included, for example the scene of the meatballs being hard and almost inedible for the future son-in-law's family
In conclusion, a lower middle class family on the outskirts of Rome in the post-war period is described; with great realism, rather than thinking or talking about politics, this family thinks above all about scraping together the means of sustenance; I think the choice by the Italian ruling class of those years to avoid extremist turns and to try to recreate a nucleus of national cohesion was very wise They were restless years, people often kept their weapons from the civil and partisan war and there was a strong tendency to take justice into their own hands; at the same time there was the disintegration of the institutional apparatus, of the police and public order forces whose functions were carried out by American soldiers; however, there was also a great desire to do, to rebuild and improve, a great desire for freedom, peace, hope for a better future. In that same period and still in Rome, Rossellini filmed "Roma, open city" on the last acts of the Nazi occupation in Italy; there were no means of public transport such as buses and rail connections were poor; the grain, the main source of sustenance, had to arrive by ship from the United States and was stored in port silos, in the cities many houses had been destroyed, the streets were full of rubble and many people lived in wooden shacks
The empathy that the spectator feels towards the female character, that is Delia, is remarkable and the emotional involvement in the story is pleasant; we have the pleasure of witnessing the reconstruction of a period of our history and above all, an extremely positive fact, it is the images that tell the story, as it must be when the expressive medium is cinema.