Having seen Death In Venice before this, I'm taken by surprise when I see two pieces by a director who, with one, disconnected me with his coerced subtlety and understatement, and with this one, ultimately lost me by exploding the melodrama to heights of overacting I have rarely seen. There are so many more films by Luchino Visconti that I want to see that I am bound to be impressed by some of them, but they will likely be the ones that find equilibrium, whether in overstatement or understatement, or neither. Neither of the aforementioned films, no matter how seethingly sensual they may be, have egged me on.
There is something to be said about Visconti's emotional instinct. For example, opening credits take a particularly long time, which complies with this film's elaborate concept of time. I would venture to say that time generally does slow down when watching Italian films, and that can be a really good thing. Usually. Here, it instead feels like it is magnifying everything, and the film, which could have been pared down to a neo-realist drama, becomes more and more like a soap opera. At first, I was thinking it would've been a great color film. After awhile, I was glad it wasn't. It was the only thing about it that didn't feel romantically embellished.
Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori and Annie Girardot comprise a very strong cast in this melodrama about the gap between family and society. Actually, in Italy, it's not melodrama. It's reality. They call it realism. We call it overacting. I am aware that this film is a Venice Grand Special Jury Prize winner, and overall a highly appreciated classic of Italian cinema, but there are simply too many contagious weeping scenes, nuggets of wisdom in the form of metaphors too eloquently put for supposedly unplanned conversations by struggling lower- class people, and by the last hour, it all seems to be arbitrary for the sake of producing tragedy.
The film is a depiction of class difference between Northern and Southern Italians. It includes an awesome boxing match between one of the eponymous brothers and another character. And there are other powerful moments such as when we see a field full of people standing in shame, a moment which propels a sudden change in tone an hour and a half in and feels like an epic turn. Delon as the sweet and loyal Rocco is emotively spongy and emphatic, but it is Salvatori who fills the screen with the grief of an agonized and wounded character. His performance is real and agitated, and Girardot is arresting as the pathetic prostitute. Nevertheless, there is a tilted fusion of dense emotionalism and realism to such a degree that the lines separating each become foggy and slight. However, such resulted in one very interesting line: "I would like to long for a car."
There is something to be said about Visconti's emotional instinct. For example, opening credits take a particularly long time, which complies with this film's elaborate concept of time. I would venture to say that time generally does slow down when watching Italian films, and that can be a really good thing. Usually. Here, it instead feels like it is magnifying everything, and the film, which could have been pared down to a neo-realist drama, becomes more and more like a soap opera. At first, I was thinking it would've been a great color film. After awhile, I was glad it wasn't. It was the only thing about it that didn't feel romantically embellished.
Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori and Annie Girardot comprise a very strong cast in this melodrama about the gap between family and society. Actually, in Italy, it's not melodrama. It's reality. They call it realism. We call it overacting. I am aware that this film is a Venice Grand Special Jury Prize winner, and overall a highly appreciated classic of Italian cinema, but there are simply too many contagious weeping scenes, nuggets of wisdom in the form of metaphors too eloquently put for supposedly unplanned conversations by struggling lower- class people, and by the last hour, it all seems to be arbitrary for the sake of producing tragedy.
The film is a depiction of class difference between Northern and Southern Italians. It includes an awesome boxing match between one of the eponymous brothers and another character. And there are other powerful moments such as when we see a field full of people standing in shame, a moment which propels a sudden change in tone an hour and a half in and feels like an epic turn. Delon as the sweet and loyal Rocco is emotively spongy and emphatic, but it is Salvatori who fills the screen with the grief of an agonized and wounded character. His performance is real and agitated, and Girardot is arresting as the pathetic prostitute. Nevertheless, there is a tilted fusion of dense emotionalism and realism to such a degree that the lines separating each become foggy and slight. However, such resulted in one very interesting line: "I would like to long for a car."