So many reviews talk of the beauty of this film, but you can't see it on the horribly transferred DVD I saw from Netflix last weekend. So much of the color has been drained from the source, and you'd thought the movie was shot in experimental color in 1939 instead of 1970. Shame on the quick-buck types who have violated De Sica's original film. It's simply awful to watch.
I had never seen this emotional film about an Italian couple who marry on the eve of his being sent to the Russian front. He never returns, and she never gives up hope of his return. The Loren/Mastroianni pairing has always been potent on the screen. And it is so here with Loren utterly magnificent as the loving wife and the grief-struck and abandoned woman later on. When the wife travels to Russia to find him years after the war, she's much older, and her life has been ruined. So the scene where she finally is connected to him through his Russian wife, and then sees him arriving at the local train station, is truly heartbreaking. While he has committed himself to his new life in Russia, marrying another woman and father two children, Loren's face shows her disappointment and overwhelming sense of sadness as she finally see that all that this woman has is now denied to her. Mastroianni has a bothersome role here. It is Loren who initially proposes they marry at the beginning of the film. He's just another callow fellow having a fling before he goes off to war. Later when he's nearly dead from walking through the frozen Russian winter, in retreat and trying to get back to Italy, his character finally gives up and falls down in the snow to die. He is saved by a beautiful Russian girl who drags him back to civilization. I guess, grateful for her ministrations, he eventually marries her and settles into a new life in Russia. So the character is rather passive to begin with, robbing Mastroianni of his usual comic bombast.
In the end, you wonder why waste these two screen giants on this weeper of a movie. I have always adored Loren. Besides her jaw-dropping beauty, she always projected such warmth, generosity of spirit, a sense of fun, and when called for, she could be as great playing tragedy as any screen actress of any generation. TWO WOMEN proved that, and films such as A SPECIAL DAY and Marriage Italian STYLE only underlined the marvelous acting skills she possessed. So it's disappointing to see her giving her usual great self to a property that isn't quite worthy of her.
It's worth seeing for two stars who can elevate any material they've been given, but wait for a better DVD remastering. This one will not do at all.
I had never seen this emotional film about an Italian couple who marry on the eve of his being sent to the Russian front. He never returns, and she never gives up hope of his return. The Loren/Mastroianni pairing has always been potent on the screen. And it is so here with Loren utterly magnificent as the loving wife and the grief-struck and abandoned woman later on. When the wife travels to Russia to find him years after the war, she's much older, and her life has been ruined. So the scene where she finally is connected to him through his Russian wife, and then sees him arriving at the local train station, is truly heartbreaking. While he has committed himself to his new life in Russia, marrying another woman and father two children, Loren's face shows her disappointment and overwhelming sense of sadness as she finally see that all that this woman has is now denied to her. Mastroianni has a bothersome role here. It is Loren who initially proposes they marry at the beginning of the film. He's just another callow fellow having a fling before he goes off to war. Later when he's nearly dead from walking through the frozen Russian winter, in retreat and trying to get back to Italy, his character finally gives up and falls down in the snow to die. He is saved by a beautiful Russian girl who drags him back to civilization. I guess, grateful for her ministrations, he eventually marries her and settles into a new life in Russia. So the character is rather passive to begin with, robbing Mastroianni of his usual comic bombast.
In the end, you wonder why waste these two screen giants on this weeper of a movie. I have always adored Loren. Besides her jaw-dropping beauty, she always projected such warmth, generosity of spirit, a sense of fun, and when called for, she could be as great playing tragedy as any screen actress of any generation. TWO WOMEN proved that, and films such as A SPECIAL DAY and Marriage Italian STYLE only underlined the marvelous acting skills she possessed. So it's disappointing to see her giving her usual great self to a property that isn't quite worthy of her.
It's worth seeing for two stars who can elevate any material they've been given, but wait for a better DVD remastering. This one will not do at all.