La Strada

La Strada is a haunting journey along little-travelled roads. Dealing with the problem of tragic loneliness and with the idea that everyone on earth has a particular place and purpose is not a new project for a film, but to illustrate his themes the director Federico Fellini has chosen singular characters in unusual places and situations.

His heroine is a touching half-wit. His hero, an almost apelike brute, is a scowling professional strong man who breaks chains by expanding his chest. His spark of hope is an odd clown who cannot help teasing the strong man.

The story of these three winds forward from the brute's purchase of the heroine from her mother for a few thousand lire. With his frightened purchase he takes to the road on a tumble-down trailer built onto a motorcycle, and is soon teaching the girl a few simple tricks--blowing a horn or dancing a few steps--with which to decorate his act. Despite frequent cuffs and constant glowering from her master, the half-wit begins to enjoy her simple performances at rural festivals.

In a carnival near Rome, however, their ways are interrupted by a clown who ridicules the brute constantly. While the strong man is in jail for an attempt to repay his tormenter with a knife, the clown tries to persuade the girl to leave her gorilla. Her refusal brings a philosophic reversal of his argument: he shows her that she is necessary to her owner and is fulfilling as important a place in the scheme of things as anyone else. The thought delights the girl, and she rejoins her man. But after a subsequent chance meeting in which the brute beats the clown to death the heroine becomes acutely sad, whimpering at any number of things that remind her of the clown. Her owner steals away to resume his solitary wandering. Only years later, when he hears of her death, he suffers for the first time a real sorrow.

In travelling with his characters Mr. Fellini comes upon many striking views of Italiaa countryside, poverty, and carnival life. Although the people are not so varied as the background, the acting is intriguing. Anthony Quinn's strong man suffers only from a slightly oppressive sameness, as he so rarely allows human emotion to intrude upon his personality. Giulietta Masina has a bright-eyed face which, helped by playful makeup, registers joy and sorrow superbly; unfortunately she has few other expressions. Richard Basehart plays the disappointed clown with Puck-like alacrity.

Although these characters are led along a road that is definitely a bit long, La Strada retains an unusual intensity in its brooding sadness.