Luciano Pigozzi	Scimmione
Eleonora Brown	Rosetta
Sophia Loren	Cesira
Carlo Ninchi	Filippo
Renato Salvatori	the truck driver
Raf Vallone	Giovanni
Andrea Checchi	the fascist
Emma Baron	Maria
Pupella Maggio	the peasant
Jean Paul Belmondo	Michele
Vincenzo Musolino	Alessandro
Luigi Terribile
Franco Balducci	the German
Ettore G. Mattia	the passenger on the train
Mario Frera
Luciana Cortellesi
Toni Caliò
Elsa Mancini
Antonio Gastaldi
Antonella Della Porta
Curt Lowens
Remo Galavotti
Giuseppina Ruggeri
Bruna Cealti	the evacuee

The war, that doesn’t save up its bombardments in Rome, induces Cesira, a youth widow, owner of a modest grocery, to look for a shelter among the mountains of the Ciociaria where she was born. Her constant worry is that to the little thirteen-year-old child, Rosetta, are saved up the afflictions, the anguishes and the sufferings that the war inflicts also to the civilians how it is possible. They are friends, relatives and the serenity of the places that seem cut out of the tragicalness of those times to welcome the two women. But the front, in continous movement along the peninsula is getting near. The first victim of that small community is Michele, a timid person in love with Cesira, that in his tormented spirit of literate and wise farmer suffers more than the others the deep crisis of the war. A group of Germans, that tries to escape the pressing of the Allies, forces the youth to be their guide through the mountains. The allied troops arrive and, in the general euphoria, Cesira decides to return to Rome together with her little child. For her, the war is finished, the nightmare has passed. Going on foot, the two women set out, but, stopped off to rest in a demolished church, here it is rapid the tragedy. A group of Moroccan soldiers united to the American army attack and violate the two women. The desperate pain of Cesira is, more than for her, for the innocent daughter. Rosetta shut herself up in a dreadful silence. Her serenity of young girl, her trusting love, are suddenly replaced by a kind of cold grudge. The sad news that Michele has been shot by the Germans, will finally loosen that ice in a beneficent weeping.

PRIZES

Oscar for Sophia Loren; Silver ribbon for Sophia Loren.
XIV Festival of Cannes (best female interpretation)
David of Donatello at Taormina
Prize of the critics in New York and innumerable other recognitions in all the world
Revision office October 1994

CRITIQUE

Drawn by Moravia’s novel, the film has the worth to have been able to reduce the characters in more human dimensions, sweetening most of the polemic or descriptive asperity of the inspiring work. The protagonist’s interpretation is adherent to her own character, psychologically well structured. Careful and skilled the direction. (Segnalazioni Cinematografiche)
Naturalistic drama drawn by the homonym novel of Alberto Moravia, with alternation of mother scenes and sketch parenthesis. An European show producted in the American way, aiming to the Loren’s prima donna attitudes that was punctually awarded prizes. (P.Mereghetti “Dizionario dei film”, translated by Alice Castoldi)

NOTES

Loren has returned to play the same character for the television: in 1989 she is still Cesira in “Two woman” (of Dino Risi, with Sidney Penny, Andrea Occhipinti, Robert Loggia), a TV movie in two episodes of 100’ each one.