Blu-Ray Review: Sophia Loren Award Collection

Of the major Italian Neo-Realists, Vittorio De Sica had one of the strongest starts, and then perhaps the least interesting late period. Fellini, Visconti, and Rossellini all evolved into more ornate, more elaborate, but still personal styles, while De Sica seemed to become more impersonal, and on the path to more awards and more acclaim (he won the Best Foreign Language Oscar four times, and was nominated a fifth time). Yet, by some miracle, he lucked into a long-term working relationship with the sex goddess Sophia Loren; they acted in several films together, and De Sica directed her in eight movies, beginning with The Gold of Naples (1954) and ending twenty years later with The Voyage (1974); he even guided her to an Oscar in Two Women (1960).

Now Kino Video has released a three-disc box set -- available on DVD or Blu-Ray -- of De Sica/Loren movies, including Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), Marriage Italian Style (1964), and Sunflower (1970). The first is the best, an Oscar winner for Foreign Language film, where De Sica uses his observant qualities for a delightfully comic effect. The movie consists of three segments set in three different cities. The first, set in Naples, is a broad, bold parody in which Adelina (Loren) sells black market cigarettes and is unable to pay a fine when she gets caught. On the verge of her arrest, she learns that she gets a reprieve for being pregnant (plus an additional six months, post-birth, for nursing). During this time, she goads her loving husband Carmine (Marcello Mastroianni) into making her pregnant again. This continues for years, until the couple has a large brood of children, and Adelina becomes inexplicably more and more beautiful. But unfortunately Carmine has become more and more run down and exhausted, and eventually unable to perform his duties.

In this, the longest segment, De Sica makes the most of a wide, colorful frame filled with worn-out working class surroundings; the well-loved atmosphere gives rise to the warmest passions. In the chillier second segment, set in Milan, Anna (Loren) is married to a wealthy businessman and picks up her lover Renzo (Mastroianni) in her fancy car. They go for a drive, or barely, since Anna can't drive very well. Anna complains about her opulent lifestyle, and they flirt with the idea of running away together, but they never seem to connect at the right time, and the day ends unsatisfactorily. This is the shortest, and subtlest segment, with more use of wide-open space. It has an underlying tension caused by the bad driving, and by the general disconnect of the dialogue. It was based on a story by the great Italian author Alberto Moravia, whose work also inspired the movies Two Women, Contempt, The Conformist, and L'ennui.

Finally, we get the Rome segment, in which Loren plays Mara, a high-priced prostitute. Her best customer, Augusto Rusconi (Mastroianni) comes to spend some time with her, but she catches the attention of a young seminary student (Gianni Ridolfi) living across the way. He becomes so smitten with her, that he's willing to quit his training, much to the chagrin of his suffering grandmother. Mara becomes distracted with this problem, routinely delaying Augusto's pleasures; Mastroianni is hilarious here, playing a lovable scatterbrained fop, who sometimes makes Loren laugh in spite of herself. Again, De Sica uses the locations, mainly inside Mara's apartment and the outdoor balconies, to glorious effect. But the real high point of this segment is Loren's famous strip tease; though fairly chaste, it's still smokin' hot.

After seeing this, I came to have a new appreciation for the force of nature that is Loren; very few actresses moved better across the screen. But I also newly appreciate Mastroianni, who, aside from his famous work with Fellini, had a wonderful arsenal of comic moods and gestures. Clearly Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is not at the same level as Bicycle Thieves or Umberto D., but it's another masterpiece all the same, bringing a much-needed humor, warmth, and sexuality to the director's work.

The disc comes with a feature-length documentary, Vittorio D., and trailers for all three movies in the De Sica/Loren set.

Marriage Italian Style was De Sica's fifth nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and the first time he lost. Star Sophia Loren was also nominated for Best Actress, but she lost to Julie Andrews (Loren had already won in 1960). Marriage Italian Style is a good deal soapier and ultimately less satisfying than De Sica's previous collaboration with Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, but it's still effectively heart-rending.

Loren plays Filumena Marturano, a lost and forgotten member of a huge, poor family, who gets by as a prostitute. During the war, this scared teen is discovered by Domenico Soriano (Marcello Mastroianni); he makes her his mistress and his servant. She remains by his side for decades, but when Domenico prepares to marry a much younger woman, Filumena takes a drastic step to get her lover to marry her; she pretends to be dying. Most of the story is told in flashback, and when the flashbacks are finished, the focus turns to Filumena's relationship with her three boys, each the result of a different, former male customer.

The movie is described as a comedy, but it's really a hysterical, heart-clutching drama with Loren shooting fire through her eyes. She is truly magnificent here, a force of nature, forced to age 20 years during the course of the movie, and fully carrying that weight. Not even Mastroianni, who was usually perfectly suited to her, could stand up to her ferocious performance; he's a goner right from the start. Overall, the movie is too big and pitched too high to be a masterpiece, but Loren brings enough personality to the table to make it worth a look.