Desiderio (1946)
Directed by Marcello Pagliero, Roberto Rossellini

Film Review

In a similar vein to Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943), Desiderio offers an intoxicating blend of Italian neo-realism and classic film noir that is distinguished by some intense performances and an unremitting aura of oppression and fatalism.  Whilst it is less polished and far less well-known than Visconti's film, Desiderio is just as effective in its use of the familiar motifs of film noir and the result is an arresting character study about a fallen woman who is tragically incapable of making a new life for herself.  The film is highly evocative of the post-war gloom that hung over Italy in the immediate aftermath of WWII and through its characters it reveals a nation poisoned by guilt and recrimination.  Desiderio is far from being a masterpiece, but it is nonetheless a striking portrait of human frailty, brutally rendered in the harsh neo-realist style.

Desiderio's troubled production is as interesting as the film itself.  Roberto Rossellini began work on the film in July 1943, when it was originally titled Scalo merci (which translates as Goods Yard).   Several times the filming was interrupted by the war, and the lead actress Oretta Fiume was replaced at an early stage by Elli Parvo.   Rossellini abandoned the film early in 1944, and a few months later Marcello Pagliero was drafted in to complete it.  Pagliero had directed one film prior to this, Nebbie sul mare (1944), and today he is better known as an actor, remembered for his appearances in Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) and several French films such as Les Jeux sont faits (1947) and Dédée d'Anvers (1948).  Pagliero rewrote much of the screenplay, changing the original railway setting to one involving a rural community in the Abruzzo region.  It was not until May 1946 that the film was finally seen by the Italian public.

Desiderio shows little sign of its fragmented production and if it does, on occasion, feel a little crude and unven, this only adds to its biting sense of realism.  As the doomed heroine, Elli Parvo makes a stunning Italian femme fatale, a conflicted soul whose longing for a respectable life is constantly thwarted by the blind prejudice of others and the devastating power she exerts over the opposite sex.  The blatant sensuality of Parvo's screen persona is matched by that of her equally seductive co-star Massimo Girotti, who gives the film the same erotic charge that he had previously brought to Visconti's Ossessione.  By contrast, Carlo Ninchi exudes nothing but goodness as the man who comes so close to salvaging Parvo's doomed character.  How fitting that the film should end with Ninchi walking off into the sunset to meet the woman he has resolved to save, unaware that he has lost her forever - an exquisitely poignant ending to a desperately bleak film.

Film Synopsis

Paola Previtali is a young woman from the country who makes a living as a prostitute in Rome.  One day, she is badly shaken when she arrives at a spot where a desperate woman has recently fallen to her death, a suicide.  A stranger named Giovanni comes to her aid.  He befriends her and she feels compelled to conceal her true profession.  Giovanni is a dedicated horticulturist with a special aptitude for reviving sickly plants.  Aware that he is falling in love with her, Paola yearns to tell Giovanni the truth about herself, but she cannot.  Instead, she leaves him and returns to her home village in the Abruzzi mountains.  She receives a warm reception from her sister Anna, who has just married the handsome Nando, but her father shuns her, unable to forgive her dissolute way of life.  Despite her desire to turn over a new leaf, Paola continues to inflame the passions of the men around her, including the hot-blooded Nando...