La Strada (1956)

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

"La Strada" is Fellini's poignant drama about a simple, naïve young women Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) who is 'sold' by her mother to be the consort/assistant of Zampanò, a cruel, itinerant street performer (Anthony Quinn). The film follows the two as they travel though post-war Italy performing Zampanò's shabby one-man show for handouts. While working in a run-down circus, they encounter "Il Matto" (Richard Basehart), a talented performer who takes an immediate dislike to Zampanò and taunts the quick-tempered strongman at every opportunity. Gelsomina is torn between her aversion to the harsh, thoughtless Zampanò and a feeling of duty toward him, which she begins to believe is her purpose in life. As the sweet, fragile Gelsomina, Giulietta Masina is fascinating to watch. She has limited dialogue and much of her story is told in her face, which ranges from almost expressionless vacuity to great joy to profound sadness, as she struggles to get along with her brutish companion. Quinn and Basehart, playing contrasting, antagonistic characters, are also excellent. Winner of the first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Best seen in the original Italian, with subtitles if necessary.

La Strada, or The Road if you prefer, tells about young woman named Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), who gets taken in by a travelling strongman performer named Zampanó (Anthony Quinn). Well, to be more accurate, she gets sold to him by her family. The movie follows them along as they travel the countryside, gathering money by doing various shows, the most prevalent being Zampanó busting a chain tied around his chest by flexing his muscles. You know... high art.The movie has its ups and downs. The characters themselves are easily the best part. The two main characters meet all kinds of people along their journey, including some other circus performers, the most interesting being The Fool, played by Richard Basehart. But it's the two of them that hold the central focus for the majority of the runtime and they are quite fascinating. Zampanó, a gruff dog beaten by the world and ready to beat it back, yet not an evil man per se. And Gelsomina, a sad and lonely child trapped in the body of an adult. What makes them even more interesting is that they don't really change all that much throughout the film. Sure Gelsomina moves from depression to having some form of affection towards Zampanó, but yet she still remains exactly the same character she was in the beginning. Likewise with him. It's simply that we get pulled deeper and deeper into them as the movie progresses. They don't change, we simply learn more about them.As far as the story goes, it's not overly complicated, which is fine at first, but in the end leaves you wanting a bit more. It's a character study movie, certainly, but in the end all they do is wander around and have arguments with one another. I liked it, but these two great characters could have told a bigger story without any problems.Still, it's a nice movie to check out and a really strong early work from director Federico Fellini.

Others might see symbolism in the characters of this film based on the elements and director Federico Fellini certainly includes his familiar tropes in this film such as the sea, circus, clowns, beach, good women and prostitutes.To me this is a road picture of two not very bright people who end up together. Zampano (Anthony Quinn) has a circus strong man routine travelling around in a beat up camper van pulled by a motor cycle. His companion Rosa has died, he goes to tell the news to her mother and buys Rosa's younger sister as a replacement. Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) who he brutally trains to be his assistant.Zampano is a brutish thug, a drinker, a womaniser. I was never convinced whether he loved or cared for Gelsomina, I believe she cares for him and even loved him.When both join a larger circus she comes into contact with the Fool (Richard Basehart) who is a clown and a high wire act. He is a sweet man to Gelsomina, even a kindred spirit but he senses that Gelsomina loves Zampano and maybe he loves her but cannot show it or say it because he just lacks the intelligence. The Fool like a few other people throughout the film offers her a way out from Zampano but she refuses.The Fool also has a deep dislike for Zampano, always taunting him and driving him to a rage. Eventually their path will cross again leaving Gelsomina mad and Zampano to abandon her. At the end Zampano is left unfolding his emotions to the sea. Maybe he eventually realised the love he has lost.There is distinctive music from Nina Rota. Actress Masina has a clown like way of movement which looked like Harpo Marx combined with Charlie Chaplin. You can see why the circus wanted her to stay. She had an inane sweetness in contrast with Quinn's Zampano whose only ability was the strongman act where he could break chains with his pectoral muscles. If he had any sense he might had realised that that being taunted by The Fool could had been incorporated into the circus act with beneficial results.There is a tragic undercurrent in this film very much from the first scene heightened by the black and white photography and Fellini's symbolism's which he revisited many times in the course of his career.

With such simplicity one might wonder how Fellini pulled it off so marvelously. I saw this film after watching his masterpiece 8 1/2.. This one did not carry those complex scenes that need lots of interpretations, yet it had much depth in it and left a great deal of impact on me. Perhaps it was intended to have this simple plot because love that is the subject of this movie is simple and that is why it is so powerful.Zampano is the unmindful cruel man that cares for nothing but his pleasures.. he is a simple showman that travels from place to place to perform his acts. He starts taking Gelsomina, who is a poor simple minded young woman, with him in his rides after her mother sold her to him. Gelsomina is his contradiction.. an innocent pure soul that cares for others.. that wants to love and be loved.. that wants to give meaning to her life.She was miserable.. struggling with her new life when she learned from another showman, a character which seemed shallow from the outside and truly was deep from the inside, that everything was there for a reason and a purpose. Zampano, and so she thought, was the purpose of her being in life, and love was there.. but was it enough to change him..After a while she seemed crazier.. or maybe the insanity of people's acts were reflecting on her as she was purer and clearer than a mirror. She had a purpose and fought for it and there in every detail of this great film you will reflect on the simplicity and greatness of love.