Film Review
Having started his filmmaking career with a series of popular comedies,
Raffaello Matarazzo gravitated to melodramas at the end of the 1940s
and had his first major hit with this quintessential Italian
weepy.
Catene (a.k.a.
Chains) was a phenomenal success,
the third biggest hit of the year at the Italian box office and the
film that established Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson as one of
Italian cinema's most popular on-screen couples. Unstarry,
self-effacing and yet instantly likeable, Nazzari and Sanson epitomised
the ordinary working class couple, coping as best they could with the
disasters that life threw in their path. They appeared together
in many subsequent films, including five by Matarazzo, most notably
Tormento (1950) and
L'Angelo bianco (1955).
In common with virtually all Italian film melodrama,
Catene tells the story from the
woman's point of view, using her reaction at key moments to heighten
the drama and deliver the most pointed commentary on the
harshness and injustice of modern life, as experienced by ordinary
people. The best example of this is the scene in which the
loathsome ex-lover Emilio is attacked and murdered by
Guglielmo. Like Rosa, we are expelled from the little room
in which the action takes place, and the horror of the situation is
conveyed to us by the desperation that overtakes Rosa as her husband
seals her fate (and his own) with a conveniently placed
pistol. Other scenes, notably the one in which Rosa goes
off to see Emilio for the last time, are shown from the perspective of
the child characters, Tonino and Angela, something that gives the film
a palpable sense of anguish and loss as the family unit is gradually
torn apart.
Rosa's over-emphasised moment of self-sacrifice is typical of Italian
melodrama (as it is in its equally derided American cousin, the
so-called women's picture), but rather than make her into a martyr (as
Pasolini did with his later neo-realist melodrama
Mamma
Roma), the film concludes in a happier vein, with order
restored and the rift healed. By opting for such a soft ending
and thereby rejecting neo-realism (then considered the true
representation of Italian society), Matarazzo made himself an easy
target for the critics, who would take a particular delight in
ridiculing this and subsequent films. It wasn't until the end of
his career that Matarazzo began to win the critics round, by which time
his earlier work was beginning to garner more favourable critical
attention. In common with many films of its ilk,
Catene does play its emotional
cards a little too deliberately in parts, but such is the authenticity
of the performances and the sheer elegance of the mise-en-scène
(to say nothing of the sumptuous location photography in Naples) that
it can hardly fail to captivate and enchant any devotee of Italian
cinema.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In Naples, Rosa leads a contented family life with her husband
Guglielmo, the owner of a garage, and two young children. One
day, her world is thrown into a turmoil when her former fiancée
Emilio appears from nowhere and reminds her of their idyllic romance
before the war. Rosa's love for Emilio has long since faded
and, aware that he now leads the life of a criminal, she has no
intention of abandoning her family for him. When Emilio threatens
to expose her earlier love affair to her husband, Rosa agrees to see
him one last time, in the privacy of a hotel room. Before Rosa
can say her piece, Guglielmo appears and, consumed with jealousy,
shoots Emilio dead with his own gun. Before he flees to America,
Guglielmo places his children in the care of his elderly mother,
insisting that they should never see Rosa again. When the
authorities finally catch up with him, Guglielmo is brought back to
Italy to await trial for murder. Aware that it is the only way to
prevent her husband from being sent to prison for thirty years, Rosa
tells the court that she intended leaving him for Emilio. As she
utters the lie, she knows that she may lose her husband and children
forever...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.