La Strada Review- By Michael Carlisle

 Title: La Strada
Director: Federico Fellini
Year: 1954
Country: Italy
Language: Italian

For a long while I have avoided many of the films made by the renowned Italian Director Federico Fellini, I saw Satyricon, La Dolce Vita and Juliet of the Spirits a few years ago and wasn't as enchanted by them as I thought I would be. I also am not a fan of "circus" films or the circus in general. Far too optimistic and strange for me, not very entertaining or insightful. However I saw an interview with Martin Scorsese, he too hated the circus but found himself drawn to La Strada as a child. His words filled me with great intrigue as I trust Scorsese's incredible knowledge of cinema. So I watched it and it completely blew me away with awe and inspiration.

La Strada is an emotional story about a woman named Gelsomina (Guilietta Masina) who is sold by her mother to Zampano (Anthony Quinn) for 10,000 lire and a few kilos of food. Zampano is a brute, a travelling showman who shows feats of strength by breaking various chains around his chest. He treats her horribly, beats her when she tries to run away. Once they join a traveling circus they meet Il Matto (Richard Basehart) and a minor disagreement turns to sad tragedy.

What is interesting about this film, is that each character can be sympathized with. While Zampano seems to be a despicable man who beats women, we see that he is a victim of his own rage. It plays a pivotal part in the downfall of his own emotional state. He reminds me of Jake LaMotta in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Both characters have extreme jealousy and hatred brewing within them and it hurts the people they love. Of course this is not a coincidence as Scorsese's version of LaMotta is loosely based upon Zampono, whose ultimate tragedy is that he loves Gelsomina yet cannot emotionally comprehend it until it is too late.

The character of Gelsomina is beautifully acted by Guilietta Masina, Federico Fellini's first and only wife of 50 years. She approaches the character  with a Chaplin-esque like innocence which proves not only to make her an enticing character but it adds to the sadness of the entire film. La Strada is incredibly simple for a Fellini film, but extremely potent. It contains many of the visual elements that would be re-visited during his later films like 8 1/2.

In conclusion, while La Strada's style moves away from the postwar neorealism that gripped Italian Cinema in the 50's, it is still considered among the best of what Italy has to offer. It won the Academy Award for "Best Foreign Film" and is among Fellini's most accessible work. Full of simple characters with complex emotion, it is definitely a film worth owning. Praise it! 5/5