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Considered
one of the great lost classics
of Italian neo-realism, this bleak
drama was the debut feature of
filmmaker Marco Bellocchio. Lou
Castel stars as Alessandro, an
epileptic from a large family
of similarly afflicted siblings,
headed up by a blind matriarch
(Liliana Gerace). The only healthy
member of the family is Alessandro's
brother Augusto (Marino Mase),
who wants to marry his girlfriend
but refuses to saddle a bride
with the enormous burden of helping
to care for his ailing relatives.
Sympathetic to Augusto's plight,
Alessandro decides to murder the
rest of the family so as to set
his brother free and assure him
of an inheritance. After hurling
his mother into a ravine and drowning
his little brother, Alessandro
returns home to suffer a seizure.
Long hailed by critics and historians
as an unjustly ignored film, this
was one of 15 titles selected
by New York's Museum of Modern
Art for its "Second Act"
retrospective of post-war Italian
cinema in the spring of 2000.
video
source quality rating: B |
