Ossessione (Visconti, 1943): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.15pm
This film, part of the Italian Neorealism season at BFI Southbank, also screens on May 12th. You can find the details here.
Time Out review:
Luchino Visconti's stunning feature debut transposes The Postman Always Rings Twice
to the endless, empty lowlands of the Po Delta. There, an itinerant
labourer (Massimo Girotti) stumbles into a tatty roadside trattoria and an
emotional quagmire. Seduced by Calamai, he disposes of her fat, doltish
husband (Juan de Landa), and the familiar Cain litany - lust, greed, murder,
recrimination - begins. Ossessione is often described as the
harbinger of neo-realism, but the pictorial beauty (and astute use of
music, often ironically) are pure Visconti, while the bleak view of
sexual passion poaches on authentic noir territory, steeped, as co-scriptwriter Giuseppe De Santis put it, 'in the air of death and sperm'.
Sheila Johnston
Here (and above) is an extract.
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