Rating: 3.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2022 | 32/52 | Spine #500-600 (#531)
Italy, Spring of 1866. The last months of the Austrian Occupation of the Veneto.
The Italian government has forged a pact with Prussia, and the war of liberation is imminent.
A performance of “Di quella pira” from Verdi’s Il trovatore fills a lush opera house. The aria ends with a call to arms, which cues Italian revolutionaries in the crowd to drop leaflets in Italy’s flag colors and demand the occupying Austrian officers leave Italy. The scene draws cheers from some and silence from the Austrians. Count Serpieri demands action while his wife, Countess Livia Serpieri, observes the unfolding chaos. From the crowd, Roberto Ussoni, her cousin and protest organizer, throws her a small red, white, and green bouquet. Austrian Lieutenant Franz Mahler jokes about Italian forms of protest, drawing Roberto’s ire, and he calls for a duel. Franz leaves as the Austrian soldiers hold back Roberto and his collaborators.
Livia runs to the lobby to find Roberto. Livia finds Roberto and asks him to go into hiding and wait until she sends word. The opera continues, and Livia does her best to protect Roberto, suggesting a rivalry over women between him and Franz. Livia asks to meet Franz. When he arrives, she hints that she despises melodrama anywhere but on stage. More directly, she asks him not to duel. But Franz is not interested in dueling, only imprisoning the agitprop distributors. Sure enough, when she goes to check on Roberto, he and three others have been arrested and condemned to a year of exile.
When Franz sees Livia again, he pursues her despite her wishes otherwise. But as they walk and understand one another, Livia falls for Franz. So, when he proposes a clandestine meeting, Livia feels shame for how much she wishes to fulfill that request. It seems Livia has brought the melodrama of the stage into her life. The film follows the roller coaster of Franz and Livia’s affair to the only place it could ever go.
The word “senso” in Italian means “sense, feeling, or lust.” This film takes the naked lust of the novella and converts it into a full-blown love affair. The film beautifully realizes the era with meticulous costume design and impressionist-inspired production design. Rather than write a score, the film uses period music from Anton Bruckner.
As a result, Visconti’s fellow Italians accused him of betraying the principles of neo-realism—a funny accusation considering he was one of the movement’s founders. It was also Visconti’s first use of color and boy, did this movie warrant it. If the film excels at anything, it’s the visual texture that it develops and maintains throughout. This sense of realism girds the heightened story in a sense of time and place.
The film strongly opposes war. Franz gives a speech about war’s true purpose: to force people into thinking and behaving in ways that benefit the people in power. Why else would a person go onto a battlefield to die, except that someone has convinced them that it will make a difference?
The war scenes are elaborate but ultimately pretty boring. Similarly, I couldn’t get myself on the same wavelength as the central romance. I could see the levels of manipulation and delusion at play, but something about how we experience it just didn’t click with me until the climax. I’d like to try the movie again in a different setting at some point.
Still, the movie is beautifully crafted and has plenty to appreciate.