Stromboli (1950)
This neo-realistic Italian film sparked the affair between one of my favourite actresses and Italian director, Roberto Rossellini. This union ended with an out of wedlock baby, which ostracised Ingrid Bergman for years at the Hollywood level. A neo-realistic movie (Neorealismo) would be one where the location of the set is amongst the poor and its use of non-professional actors.
Here, in Stromboli, the setting is among a fishing community living on an island with a volcano. Coincidentally, it actually erupted during the shooting.
Even though it tells a story of a Lithuanian refugee who gets herself in a marriage of convenience to escape internment camp, it questions life and God at a deeper level. It narrates the harsh reality of getting hitched to someone totally different in values, beliefs, way of life, and how he lives.
Karin (Ingrid Bergman) finds herself living in a depilated house on an island with active volcanic activity. Her neighbours are unfriendly judgemental conservative old ladies. The youngsters have all left the scene. The only person she thought she could relate to is a parish priest whom she later discovers is not forthcoming with help as he is worried about what the rest of the community would think about him. Karin's husband, who promised to work hard to keep her happy, still abuses her after hearing bad-mouthing by some old ladies. She finds herself practically imprisoned on the island. She was 3 months pregnant by the time a volcanic eruption occurred.
After exhausting all other possible ways to escape, she does a treacherous climb over the volcanic hill which had just purged magma. This is where the highlight of the movie, with its questioning of the silence of God, albeit for a short time, happens. Karin cannot understand why after going through so much in her life, running from place to place displayed by the war, losing her loved ones in her family, enduring sexual assaults in the war, she still found no freedom! The usually strong Karin symbolically loses one by one her luggage, referring to her self values, stripping her down to the bare minimum till she cries her heart, and the film ends with the outcome hanging in the air; whether she abandons her journey and returns to her husband or escapes to her freedom...
This neo-realistic Italian film sparked the affair between one of my favourite actresses and Italian director, Roberto Rossellini. This union ended with an out of wedlock baby, which ostracised Ingrid Bergman for years at the Hollywood level. A neo-realistic movie (Neorealismo) would be one where the location of the set is amongst the poor and its use of non-professional actors.Here, in Stromboli, the setting is among a fishing community living on an island with a volcano. Coincidentally, it actually erupted during the shooting.
Even though it tells a story of a Lithuanian refugee who gets herself in a marriage of convenience to escape internment camp, it questions life and God at a deeper level. It narrates the harsh reality of getting hitched to someone totally different in values, beliefs, way of life, and how he lives.
Karin (Ingrid Bergman) finds herself living in a depilated house on an island with active volcanic activity. Her neighbours are unfriendly judgemental conservative old ladies. The youngsters have all left the scene. The only person she thought she could relate to is a parish priest whom she later discovers is not forthcoming with help as he is worried about what the rest of the community would think about him. Karin's husband, who promised to work hard to keep her happy, still abuses her after hearing bad-mouthing by some old ladies. She finds herself practically imprisoned on the island. She was 3 months pregnant by the time a volcanic eruption occurred.
Comments
Post a Comment