Product Description

Cesira and her 13-year-old daughter, Rosetta, flee from the allied bombs in Rome during the second world war. They travel to the village where Cesira was born. During their journey and in the village, the mother does everything to protect Rosetta. However, on one occasion they both get raped by soldiers hiding in a church. This cruel event is too much for the always powerful fighting Cesira and she suffers from a breakdown. During their stay in the village, a young intellectual, Michele falls in love with Cesira who does not know how to reply to the advances of such a gentleman.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47934 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-10-20
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Review
Loren from the generally slick and frivolous roles she has played during the last several years in American movies is most conspicuous and praiseworthy in her return to Italian films in Two Women (La Ciociara), which came to the Sutton yesterday. Suddenly, the decompressed Miss Loren demonstrates herself an actress again and, under the direction of Vittorio De Sica, takes a firm place in a simple, honest film.

It is not a momentous picture, not the sort that is likely to be recalled as one of the great neo-realist or post-neo-realist Italian films, for it is built upon a frame of little details that are collapsed by one cruel, climactic incident and it is so colloquial in so much of its content that it seems exclusively national. Furthermore, the English subtitles do such a poor job of translating the abundant and juicy Italian dialogue that the meaning and quality of the talk, which is so important, are lost for those who haven't the full Italian tongue.

For the first hour or so it is deceptive deliberately so, no doubt, as a way of disarming the viewer for the shock and significance of its crushing episode. It is simply the easy, jolly story of a young widowed mother who cuts out of Rome after a series of heavy bombardments in 1943 and takes her thirteen-year-old daughter back to her own natal village in the hills of Ciociara.

Except for one ugly experience with a strafing plane on the way in and a brush with a couple of clumsy fascist police that is more amusing than unpleasant, the two get along quite nicely with the peasants back in the hills, sitting out the war in comparative safety and wanting only for an abundance of food and a little love. The latter is tentatively offered by a timid, bespectacled young man whom the mother lightly puts off as too feeble but the daughter wistfully worships from afar.

Then Italy is invaded by the Allies, the Germans grimly retreat, and mother and daughter fall in behind the Americans in what they hope will be an easy hike back to Rome. But one night, while seeking a little shelter alone in a bombed-out church, they are attacked and brutally ravished by a howling mob of Moroccan troops. It is a horrible, shattering experience, a destructive bolt out of the blue, and the mother's pathetic endeavors to correct the damage make up the remainder of the tale.

Evidently, the purpose of this suddenly tragic account, as originally written by Alberto Moravio and adapted by Cesare Zavattini for the screen, is to represent the disaster of those people and, indeed, of Italy who thought the war was a matter of playing it cozy and making do. The indication of Allied soldiers committing the devastating rape is the ultimate bitter dramatization and comment upon the tragedy of the war.

This is the comment of the picture, and it is suddenly, sharply put, but the beauty of Miss Loren's performance is in her illumination of a passionate mother role. She is happy, expansive, lusty in the early phases of the film, in tune with the gusto of the peasants, gentle with her child. But when disaster strikes, she is grave and profound. When she weeps for the innocence of her daughter, one quietly weeps with her.

The child is played with luminous sweetness and dignity by Eleanora Brown, and the Frenchman, Jean-Paul Belmondo (the thug of Breathless), is mildly amusing as the timid young man. Raf Vallone and Renato Salvatori are sturdy in very small roles.

Signor De Sica's direction has the qualities of fullness and momentum that are familiar and so compelling in his films. --The New York Times

About the Actor
She is the illegitimate child of Romilda Villani and Riccardo Scicolone. Sophia grew up in the slums of Pozzuoli, just outside Naples. After insignificant parts in Luci del varietà (1950) and Quo Vadis (1951), she met movie-director Carlo Ponti, some 22 years her senior, whom she later married. Perhaps he was the father figure she never experienced as a child. In 1961, she received an Academy Award for Ciociara, La (1960) ("Two Women"). This beautiful lady became one of the major sex symbol of the sixties, competing with Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. She was a very close friend of Cary Grant.

She gained wider respect with her later movies like The Cassandra Crossing (1976), Giornata particolare, Una (1977) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994). A lot of her movies were produced by her husband. In many of her movies, she played together with Marcello Mastroianni.

About the Director
Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in 1923. By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee idol of the Italian theatre, and repeated that achievement in Italian movies, mostly light comedies. He turned to directing in 1940, making comedies in a similar vein, but with his fifth film Bambini ci guardano, I (1944), he revealed hitherto unsuspected depths and an extraordinarily sensitive touch with actors, especially children. It was also the first film he made with the writer Cesare Zavattini with whom he would subsequently make Sciuscià (1946) and Ladri di biciclette (1948), heartbreaking studies of poverty in postwar Italy which won special Oscars before the foreign film category was officially established. After the box-office disaster of Umberto D. (1952), a relentlessly bleak study of the problems of old age, he returned to directing lighter work, appearing in front of the camera more frequently. Although Ieri, oggi, domani (1963) won him another Oscar, it was generally accepted that his career as one of the great directors was over. However, just before he died he made Giardino dei Finzi-Contini, Il (1970), which won him yet another Oscar, and his final film Breve vacanza, Una (1973). He died following the removal of a cyst from his lungs.

Customer Reviews

messed up masterpiece
I was fooled by the price of this DVD and the phoney advertising claim that this was a new remastered edition and the title being in Italian made me think this would be a superior transfer and in the original language but not so! The picture quality is hazy and poor, the motion is distorted like watching on a cheap computer and it is dubbed. Stay away from this company!

False Advertising
I completely agree with Mr. Wentworth. This is not a remastered version. The quality of the print is the same as that in the copy sold by Amazon.com that costs half the price of this one. And, the film is not in the original language, Italian. I've never before been taken in by false advertising on Amazon.com. I would recommend that you not buy any DVDs from this distributor. The film itself is very good, and many of us have been waiting a long time for a remastered version to come out. This is not it.

A Must See!
Sophia Loren, has Defiantly delivered the greatest performance in the history of movie. This film is a war film that focuses more on the people who suffer, instead of telling the story of those fighting the battle. It's also a movie about love, relationship, bonding between a woman and her daughter. Sophia's performance as the widowed mother of a teen age girl in this movie that depicted the horrors of the second great war was absolutely heart-felt and perfect. Belmondo is also very good. Young Eleonora Brown's performance gets better during the film. The last 30 minutes of the movie are poignant. It's heartbreaking to listen to Cesira apologize to Rosetta.