La Strada

One of the great classics of Italian cinema, La Strada is undoubtedly Fellini's most popular film and one of his best. In historical terms it includes Anthony Quinn in his greatest role, it introduces Fellini's wife Gulietta Masina in a stunning performance and it is supported by a beautiful soundtrack by Nino Rota.

The film deals with Gelsomina - played by Masina - as a simpleton girl who is sold to Zampano (Quinn) a travelling strongman, brute and coarse, who exploits Gelsomina's naivety at every chance. After an unsuccessful attempt to escape she joins (with him) a circus and she develops a friendship with "The Fool" (Richard Basehart), a weird tightwire walker...

Despite the comical elements in it, usually generated by Masina's lovely mannerisms strongly reminiscent of Chaplin, La Strada is ultimately a bitter film which addresses more issues than one is originally inclined to think. The adumbration of a character like Gelsomina (in one scene placed against a wall poster of the Madonna) points remarkably to a Christian interpretation of the soul's salvation through suffering. Not a typical Fellini orientation but one which functions perfectly well through basically an unmatched performance by Masina. It's really hard to think of any other actress who would have fitted this particular character and who would have made such a contrast to the barbarous Zampano.

The neorealist heritage can be easily felt but Fellini has already passed that stage especially through the innovations in the film's narrative. There are plenty of moments which establish Fellini as one of the great magicians of world cinema and which make La Strada such a lyrical piece of filmmaking with the monochrome photography capturing splendidly the underdeveloped rural Italy. In the climatic final sequence - Zampano's desperate wandering - the emotional build up explodes, and one's sense of desolation becomes complete.

Review by Spiros Gangas
Taken from EUFS Programme 1993/94