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Italy Italian Neo-Realism Poverty Rape World War II

All of the newer copies of "Two Women", that I've seen, seem to have some sort of lurid image of Sophia Loren on the cover. While I'm not at all averse to all of the lurid images of Sophia that publishers out there want to print, when you consider the tragic ideas that make up this film, that sort of image just hardly seems to be appropriate. This is not a beach-bunny film or a romantic comedy. It's a sophisticated and poetic, wartime drama made by one of the real masters of the Italian Neo-Realist movement which features a wonderful performance by Loren in one of her first and finest, serious, dramatic roles. It strikes me as strange that it's marketed the way it is and that the public would rather see "bunnies" than a movie like this one or that marketeers see us as blithering, drooling simpletons that prefer that sort of thing.

Ah well, this is the way the film goes: We start things with a shot of the streets of Rome. Many people are calmly wandering about, minding their own business, when air-raid sirens begin to blare in the distance and people begin to run... somewhere. Bombs begin to explode and add their thunder to the sounds of the sirens. Cesira {Sophia Loren} appears in a doorway and frantically pulls the shutters to seal the store off from the war. From inside the store, we hear a bomb explode, quite close by, and all of the canned goods fall off of the shelf onto the floor. Cesira runs to the back of the shop while calling for Rosetta {Eleonora Brown}, her daughter. At the back of the store, Cesira clutches at her daughter as the girl passes out from shock and fear. Cesira drags the girl to a nearby bed and screams for a glass of water. Her screams mingle with those of the other women in the shop as another bomb drops just outside and a man runs down the steps with a glass of water in his hands and hands it to Cesira.

After a few tears and hurried consolations, the bombing is over just as quickly as it began and Cesira announces that they must get out of Rome. After some ranting, one of the men looks outside to see his home in flames. Cut to the street and some discussion of the war, the Pope and president Roosevelt, followed by Cesira's short trek through the streets to a friend's house. Cesira explains her plans to get out of the city to Giovanni {Raf Vallone} and asks him to take care of the store in her absence. After some discussion of Mussolini and Cesira's ex-husband, this scene becomes just a little romantic. I'll just say that the whole thing is beautifully lighted and that Cesira's exit is classic and move on to the next page.

Cut to the train. Cesira and Rosetta are headed to the country. Once again, this is beautifully lighted. Sophia is treated like a classic portrait study and is just exquisitely beautiful. This isn't the same woman you may be used to from American films. There really is something magical in the way she works with the camera and this director and in the way she plays Cesira. A few hours into the trip, they discover that the tracks have been bombed out just ahead of the train and decide to walk rather than wait for repairs to be made. At a small house in the country, the two women stop to buy food and stay for the night. While they're there, they have a run in with several of Mussolini's troops which nearly results in Cesira being shot.

They're forced to sneak out of the house, early the next morning, so as to avoid the fascists that they fear will be returning. As they walk beside the tracks, a plane strafes the road, narrowly missing Cesira and Rosette and killing an old man that's riding next to them on a bicycle. A bit further down the road they come to Cesira's old homestead and we meet the relatives. At lunch, Michele {Jean-Paul Belmondo} tells us he'll kill himself if the Germans win the war and calls everyone pigs as he storms away from the table. While we're staying in the country, we hear the news that Mussolini has been imprisoned and discuss what it might be like to have sex with him.

We spend quite some time with the refugees here and we come to a fairly thorough understanding of their plight. On a trip into the city, in search of food, we discover just how tragic that plight has become for some people and spend a bit of time watching ladybugs. When the Germans take Michele away, as they retreat in the face of the American forces, things get stressful. When the Americans finally roll through the hills where these people are staying, Cesira believes that it's safe to go home.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In an absolutely chilling scene, Cesira and her young daughter are gang-raped in a church on their way back to Rome. The aftermath of this is moving as hell. It's very strange to see the way these people try to exist outside of a war that continues to invade everyone's lives no matter how far they run from it. I've gone ahead and told you most of the movie here. I just thought of it as necessary to explain enough of the movie to give you a good idea of the way it goes. Besides, I needed a rationalization for my opening "this is not a lurid picture of Sophia Loren on the cover sort of movie" rant.

The greyscales in this film are amazing and the direction is impeccable. Sophia is nothing short of incredible in this movie; her performance of Cesira is masterful and moving. It's pretty funny to see Belmondo play a nerd in the relatively sane moments of this film. In the last several minutes of the film, Brown puts in a great performance as the traumatized young girl. In the earlier moments, she exists pretty much in her mother's shadow. It's really difficult to get across the idea of just how well this is shot. Many scenes in this film are as good as any black and white photography that's ever been made, the composition is creative, sensitive and deliberate; nicely thought out and beautifully implemented. The story is complex enough, and filled with all sorts of subtleties and symbolism and certainly has the sentiment down pat. This would make an excellent addition to any collection of anti-war films.

This movie does fit a lot of the parameters for Italian Neo-Realism, by the way, even if it is a bit out of time. It's got the qualifications... I'm going to add it to the category. It deserves to be included in the listings. Sophia Loren won the Oscar for Best Actress for the role of Cesira.