Directed by Ettore Scola
Screenwriters: Maurizio Costanzo, Ruggero Maccari
Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis
Editing: Raimondo Crociani
Music: Armando Trovajoli
Released in 1977
 

Cast

Antonietta...........Sophia Loren
Gabriele.............Marcello Mastroianni
Concierge...........Francoise Berd
Emanuele...........John Vernon
Maria Luisa ........Alessandra Mussolini
 
 

Story

The action takes place in Rome, Italy, on May 4, 1938. The day before, Hitler has arrived on an official visit and all of Rome has the day off to participate in a celebratory parade. Antonietta, a lower middle class, ill educated, fascist housewife, sees her large family off to the parade. While she's engaged in house chores, her parrot flies away. In order to catch it, she rings the apartment of a man, Gabriele, who, strangely, has not gone to the parade. He's an ex radio announcer who, being homosexual, has been expelled from the Fascist Party, fired, and is now awaiting deportation to Sardinia. He's desperate and is considering committing suicide. But Antonietta's appearance cheers him up, and the two end up by spending much of the day together, as they quarrel, make up and eventually make love. During that day, as the custodian's radio blares the report of the parade and Mussolini's speech, they come to see that both of them are oppressed by the same institutions. As the day draws to an end, Antonietta's domineering husband returns from the parade with the children, and Gabriele is taken away by the police.

Analysis

Antonietta, the main character of the movie, is an ill educated housewife married to a domineering fascist known better at the brothel than at the office. She too is a fascist who idolizes Mussolini: she has made a portrait of the 'man of destiny' using buttons, and proudly recounts how the Duce, galloping on his horse, gave her a glance which (metaphorically) impregnated her with her son, appropriately christened Littorio. In fact, she has even composed a poem to the effect that a husband should not be jealous if his wife loves Mussolini. Her album is so naively and unabashedly pro-Duce that Gabriele takes it for her daughter's; it is replete with pictures of Mussolini, and in it she has written some slogans embodying fascist views regarding gender roles: 'A man is not a man unless he's a husband, a father, and a soldier;' 'Genius is incompatible with female physiology and psychology, and is therefore male.' Of course, as the role of men is to be husbands and fathers, that of women is to be the wives and mothers. So, she is proud of having six children because fascism encourages large families and rewards procreative zeal with subsidies and premiums (note that single men, like Gabriele, have to pay a 'single tax').  As in all well oiled political systems, ideological and material incentives mutually reinforce one another.
However, she is not happy (she does not laugh, as Gabriele notices). She spends all her time taking care of her family, and consequently she looks shabby, as her husband, who does not respect her, unkindly points out; her husband orders her around both in the house and in the bed, and humiliates her in front of the children, with the result that they do respect her either. In addition, although she has a large family, she is really alone and talks more to her bird than to her husband; she cannot even go to the parade to see her idol, the Duce, because, as a neighbor notes, she has no maid.
Antonietta believes in an ideology providing one of the necessary conditions for her oppression; in other words, she suffers from false consciousness. Her problems are compounded by lack of education: her husband is having an affair with a school teacher, 'an educated person' as she worriedly notes, who can write love letters she could never have written even when she was still in love with her husband.
Gabriele is a desperate homosexual man who is considering suicide. In spite of his efforts at hiding his sexual preferences, he has been found out. As a result, he has been kicked out of the Fascist Party (a man's party!), has lost his job as an announcer at the state radio (the only radio, of course), and is going to be deported to Carbonia (a coal town built on the island of Sardinia by Mussolini). Although not an anti-fascist (his only subversive activity seems limited to addressing people with "Lei" rather than with the prescribed "Voi), he's very aware that there is no room for him in fascist Italy for he cannot be a husband, a father and a soldier while being himself. But, of course, he also knows that anti homosexual attitudes run much deeper than Fascism. His problems, although exacerbated by Fascism, stem from the enforcement of morality, a form of community control over the individual, which can flourish in a non fascist society, as Devlin's reading shows.
There is also a third main 'character' which we never really fully see, and that is the community, that is, Fascist Italy. We see the inhabitants of the house block leaving, together and in fascist uniform (how else?), to be carted to the parade, and we see them coming back the same way. But more importantly, we notice how Antonietta's and Gabriele's lives are constantly and disturbingly invaded by the bombastic report of the parade from the blaring radio which overpowers the little gramophone on which Gabriele plays the "Rumba of the Oranges." Theirs is a society in which private life is always subordinated to the will of the community.  Individuals, Fascism holds, exists only as a part of the community, and therefore are totally subordinated to it.
The key exchange between Antonietta and Gabriele takes place on the roof, in the open air, outside the closed atmosphere of the apartments in which they most experience their loneliness and oppression. Of course, the exchange is rough: Antonietta slaps Gabriele not because he tries to seduce her (she would accept that), but because he does not. Worse, he doesn't because he's homosexual. She slaps him because she feels bewildered (here's one who doesn't fit her view of men), and perhaps a bit revolted (a man is not a man unless....) and mocked (why did he behave as if he was interested in her?). She is like the others in her anti homosexual attitude. But back in her apartment, alone, facing a wall, she changes her mind because she sees that she has treated him unjustly: she should not slap a nice man who has been kind to her just because he's not attracted to her. And Gabriele as well comes to see why she is not a happy wife looking for a cheap flirt. More importantly, each realizes that the other is oppressed by societal norms. They have sex, but, as Gabriele remarks, nothing changes. Nothing changes for Antonietta as well.  To be sure, she has changed: when her son tells her that she will have many newspaper clippings of the parade for her album, her face clearly shows that she is not interested in the stupid album any longer.  We also know that she would like to continue her relation with Gabriele.  But it cannot be. That night, after she sees Gabriele taken away, she puts down the book Gabriele gave her and goes to bed, perhaps to obey her husband and make a seventh child for the Empire.  So, the ending of the movie is rather sad; both Gabriele and Antonietta know what oppresses them, but are unable to change anything.  At the end, only American guns and Russian blood brought down Hitler and Mussolini.

Question for students

Formally, the movie is characterized by three features. First, drab colors, achieved by overwashing some of the garments, Gabriele's sweater, for example. Second, slow editing, with longish takes and camera following Antonietta and Gabriele as they meander in their apartments and in the building. Third, invading music and speeches from the parade (Note, by the way, how at the end of the movie the rumba of the oranges and a nazi marching song are intertwined. Why?). How does Scola use color, editing, and music to convey the philosophical content of the movie?