A Brilliant Conflict

The first must-see film of the year.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

That anyone could categorize this film as a "...somewhat mediocre and meandering melodramatic film by Zurlini" is sad.I suppose, one must be sympathetic a bit to Italian culture at the time of the film to understand the simple truths of a beautiful woman who is unable due to circumstance, lack of education, and her own character, to hold onto the very few and dubious chances life presents to improve her situation.With only her beauty as both spoiler and advantage a beautiful but simple woman is on the tide of personal ruin in every choice she makes. We hope and are torn for her as we watch each scene knowing the razors edge she is living on while those around her continue to misunderstand and take advantage of her plight. This is a fantastic film (albeit 'little') that it's Nomination for the 1961 Cannes Golden Palm proves. If you can find it in Italian with sub-titles listen carefully to the actors even if you don't understand Italian. The simplicity of their performances is decades before it's time. For me it remains an unforgettable masterpiece.note: I would have rated it a "10" but some of the 'jump cuts' in the were one too many for my now '21-century' tastes.

I have news for you. Claudia, as beautiful as she is, is not the most beautiful person in this film. That would be Jacque Perrin. He was 19 when the film was made (his character is 16), and the camera lingers on him in scene after scene.The story is simple: Perrin's character falls for Claudia. She's an adult, he's not. She's poor, he's nobility.Perrin's understated performance is a dead-on portrait of adolescent longing. His eyes tell the whole story. It's difficult to imagine that any man could watch him without experiencing flashbacks to his own adolescence. He doesn't know whether to hope, or not, but he can't help hoping anyway. He doesn't know anything about adult courtship, so he improvises as he goes along. He's unfailingly, achingly, kind and polite (see first clause, previous sentence). He's brave, as he pushes against, and sometimes breaks, the rules that bind a young man not yet old enough to make his own rules.Claudia, meanwhile, also provides a deeply thought performance, as a young woman whose poverty constrains her every move. She wants some tiny measure of security-- her fear of of the very real possibility of being out on the streets in palpable. She has no way to reach safety without depending on a man, but men have been awful to her. And, she wants desperately not to cross the final line of degradation and become a whore. She'll take money, but only if she can satisfy herself that it is a gift-- that is, only if she can feel that she still has some measure of choice in what happens next. Several men, including Perrin, are trying to "help" her. We see her hesitate, and calculate, in almost every conversation: trying to decide if the safety offered is real, calculating what she will have to give up if she accepts. Claudia is not in glamor mode here: she is beautiful, and the men are swarming around her, but her clothes are cheap, and she's living out of her suitcase.This is a fine film, but it's not likely to be in anyone's top ten. I think most people will find it moving and well worth watching.Why not a GREAT film? I think this is not so much because of particular flaws of the film, as because of its modest dimensions. The film is not trying to make a grand statement. It delivers deeply felt and moving drama, and two completely believable and interesting characters. Enough for me. P.S.: On the dubbed version, the voicing is surprisingly good.

Zurlini introduces a familiar theme, a futile relationship with an older woman and a younger man, perfected in his later film `Violent Summer,' but here Aida, Claudia Cardinale, plays a nighclub singer who is jilted in the opening moments of the film and spends the rest of the film searching for a way out of the stereotypical relationship of a beautiful woman using, and being used by men, a dependent and unhealthy relationship. When Marcello, a cad who lives in a lavish estate, tells his 16 year old younger Lorenzo, Jacques Perrin, to get rid of the girl, the younger brother's interest turns from bewilderment to unbridled obsession, as the high-strung, free-spirited girl surprisingly is flattered by his attention and by her belief that he has money, contrasting the obvious class distinction between the two, he lives in a statue-filled estate with his family, she lives alone out of a suitcase in a hotel room. The adults in the film are overly stern and heartless, represented by the familiar Zurlini statues which can be seen throughout his entire body of work; this lifelessness is contrasted against the passion of youth. The relationship comes to a screeching halt with the intervention of the family priest who questions Aida's motives with such a young and impressionable boy, urging her to move on. This is a brilliant scene where they speak in what appears to be a museum construction area, broken statues lie about with other scattered debris as the priest tries to reconstruct the spiritual direction of the young lovers, urging them to go their separate ways. This leads Aida into the arms of another conniving man who attempts to seduce her with plenty of money and alcohol, but Lorenzo arrives, refuses to butt out, gets his butt kicked by the older man, which leads to this extraordinarily long, beautifully evolving scene on the beach where the two lovers are caught up in the mysteries of their own futility, a kind of existential despair, surrounded by the wonderment of nature. This film constantly shifts the focus on who is the victim and who is to blame, in the end there are no answers, just a continuous search.

This somewhat mediocre and meandering melodramatic film by Zurlini features Claudia Cardinale at her most exquisitely beautiful in every shot and what shots! Beautiful long takes that allow you to concentrate on whatever you want. Tino Santoni is a hell of cinematographer, whoever he was, a total master. If the script had been a little bit better the film might've ended up transcending into a superpoetic realm like Zurlini's awesome technicolor 1962 film "Family Diary"; as it is, it's very much a failure in an overall sense but still pretty good as probably the ultimate ode to one of the most beautiful actresses in cinematic history.