Mid-Century Loves

As part of a genre of color anthology films often set in the early decades of the 20th century, this film tells dramatic and comedic love stories, tales of betrayal, spite, and torment, spanning from New Year’s Day 1900 to the end of World War II. While the episode featuring Alberto Sordi as a fascist in a black shirt—who, during the march on the capital that marked the seizure of power, suffers the funny vengeance of a woman—is quite entertaining, the episodes that stand out are above all those by Pietro Germi and Roberto Rossellini, set during the two World Wars. Germi depicts the impact of war on humble peasants and their pure loves, and Rossellini returns, after only a few years, to the settings of his neorealist films with a tone that surprises given how distant that period now seems, shrouded in a patina that shows, instead of the force of reportage and commitment, a detached and compassionate tone in contemplating the fates of men and women swept up by history. Copy from the CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.