Teresa Pellati	Ines
Alfredo Browne	the priest
Sandro Franchina	Michel
Ettore Giannini	Andrea Casati
Carlo Hintermann
Mary Joham
Ingrid Bergman	Irene Girard
Giulietta Masina	Giulietta
Antonio Pietrangeli	the psychiatrist
Marcella Rovena	Mrs Puglisi
Giancarlo Vigorelli	the judge
Maria Zanoli	Mrs Galli
Tina Perna	Cesira
William Tubbs	teacher Alessandrini
Alberto Plebani	Mr Puglisi
Gianna Segale Damiani	the nurse
Alexander Knox	George Girard

Irene Girard, wife of a foreign diplomat, lives happy at the side of her husband. Her way of life is entirely normal and corresponds to the habits of the women of her class; but, suddenly, a tragic event comes to upset her existence: her only son, twelve year-old, dies after an attempt of suicide: it results that the child believed to be neglected by his parents. This painful drama provokes in Irene’s mind a violent crisis; perhaps for reaction, perhaps influenced by the charism of a communist cousin, for a long time busy in the social sphere, the poor tries to take her mind off the thought of her boy. An she plungs in the benevolent work. She needs to deal with the next. An on her road she meets a widow with a child on load. Irene launches in a missionary crusade. She wants to help the two with all herself. And in the walk that will bring her to the insanity, she identifies herself with the woman to a such point to absorb her frustration. She, infact, works in factory. At the limits of her physical strenght. Her cousin Andrea drives her to visit the poors’ houses. First, Irene brings them material aid, and then she devotes herself with absolute devotion to the assistance of the sicks and of the sufferings. She comforts with her cares the last days of a prostitute; to induce a young criminal to the repentance, she lets him run away and she is halted for aiding and abetting. To suffocate the scandal, her husband lets her shelter in a psychiatric clinic. Determined to practise, according to her intentions, the evangelical doctrine of love, Irene refuses every compromise and she is confined forever in the house of health.

PRIZES

Silver ribbon to Ingrid Bergman (best leading actress)
International prize at the Mostra del Cinema di Venezia (1952)

CRITIQUE

“Weighted by a screen-play worked by many people, the film appears all of direction, admirable in certain intuitions, more mechanic in some narrative solutions. But Rossellini sees in the itinerary only a pretext, he moves his staging on the big ideological conflicts, he shows an internal itinerary with the dazzling light of the ex-ray photograph. For this reason “Europa 51” is one of the most important films of these years , the most actual, the most felt”, ( E. Bruno, “Filmcritica”, n. 17, October 1952, translated by Alice Castoldi)

Insane or holy, the character of Irene upset also the consciences of the ideologized Italy of the time, and it aroused discussions that today seem used as a pretext on Neorealism’s end. Over the argument a little bit programmatic, it is one of the most intense portraits of woman by Rossellini, filmed with “austere and rigorous style, sometimes bare up to the ascesis style”. (P. Mereghetti “Dizionario dei film 1998”, translated by Alice Castoldi)

NOTES

The screen-play was written in the first version by Massimo Mida and Antonello Trombadori, then it was elaborated again by Rossellini, Sandro De Feo, Ivo Perilh, Brunello Rondi, Diego Fabbri, Mario Parinunzio adn Antonio Pietrangeli (in the role of a psychiatrist). The writer Giancarlo Vigorelli acts the part of the judge.