Two Women

Director: Vittorio De Sica
Year Released: 1960
Rating: 2.0

Sophia Loren and young daughter leave bombed out Rome during WWII to find shelter; their agony at having to stay on the run turns the film into a long-running pity party. Sentimentality and sadness are built into the picture, but there is no way out: the 'conclusion' has Loren and daughter raped by a pack of Moroccans, Loren and daughter fighting amongst themselves and then, as if both of those things were not enough, Jean-Paul Belmondo's intellectual pacifist (note the glasses and faux-awkwardness) being killed by fascists. It's fine for all of these things to happen, of course, but those are the only three events the movie ends with (before the slow zoom out to darkness): it's just a showcase of agony. The movie has no real goals - it exists only upset the audience, and it certainly does not allow its heroines any freedom or salvation.