Ossessione (1943)
Directed by Luchino Visconti

Film Review

With his native Italy brought to its knees by Mussolini's fascist regime during World War II, with disease, starvation and unemployment rife, it was unlikely that Luchino Visconti's first film as a director was going to be a cheery affair.  Few films from this period convey the mood - the hopelessness, the squalor, the sheer harrowing darkness - as vigorously as Ossessione.   Yet the film was not intended to be a documentary of its time.  Rather, Visconti's intention was to make a thriller, inspired by the American film noir model, based on an American novel.  What he in fact created was something much more significant.  Through his apprenticeship to French director Jean Renoir in the 1930s, Visconti learned how natural elements - real locations, natural light, non-professional actors - could bring a sense of naked realism to a film.  He applied some of what he learnt on Ossessione, and in so doing he effectively created Italian neo-realism, arguably the single most important development in Italian cinema.

What is most striking about Ossessione is its earthiness.  The characters are so real, so anchored to their location, that you can feel their lust, smell their sweat, become intoxicated by the cloud of petrol fumes and the dust that surrounds them.  The extraordinary on-screen rapport between the two principal actors Clara Calamai and Massimo Girotti is so tangible, so explicit, so torrid, that you feel almost guilty about intruding on their frenzied amorous couplings.  This is perhaps the essence of neo-realism.  It is impossible to separate the characters from their setting; if the setting appears real, so do they.  This is what makes neo-realist films - particularly those made by the Italians in the 1940s and 1950s - so powerful.  We believe what we see, down to the smallest detail, and if what we see hurts, then we are hurt, and very much so.

Ossessione still has the power to shock today.  Imagine the impact it must have made when it was first seen.  The Italian censors found the film so depressing that they would have cancelled it had it not been for the fact that Mussolini liked it.  The reaction of the Church and the fascist elite when the film was released was predictable: Visconti was vilified and the film, deemed to be morally corrupting, was drastically cut.  After the war, Visconti restored the film, but, for copyright reasons, it could only be shown in Italy.  (When he made the film, Visconti did not have permission from the author James M. Cain, to adapt his novel, “The Postman Always Rings Twice” - owing to the fact that Italy and America happened to be at war at the time).  The original negative of the film was subsequently lost, but fortunately it was possible to create another copy from a print Visconti had retained.

Ossessione's melange of film noir and neo-realism is quite stunning, and it is surprising to see how well the two complement each other.  The harshness of the setting - a squalid provincial location in wartime Italy - emphasises the film noir elements, making it a much less comfortable film to watch than its classic American counterpart.  The sense of realism is particularly effective at conveying the reasons for the conflict between the characters Gino and Giovanna.  This is something which is noticeably lacking from the other adaptations of the James M. Cain novel, particularly the over-polished Hollywood versions.  (The first film version, Pierre Chenal's Le Dernier tournant, 1943, is impressive, but nowhere near as great as Visconti's film.)  The realism in the portrayal of the two characters compels us to develop an empathy with them, and their emotions - their guilt, fear and hope - end up coursing through our own veins, making the film's moments of suspense unbearable, and its tragic ending particularly harrowing.

Yet, for all this, Ossessione is still, quite unapologetically, a genre film, easily classified as a suspense thriller.  Its raison d'être was not to make a grand political or social statement, but to entertain, like all popular cinema.  For that reason, it is probably Visconti's most universally accessible film, and it makes a superb introduction to his oeuvre.  Ossessione may not have the unbridled artistic brilliance or social conscience of Visconti's subsequent historical frescos and neo-realist dramas, but its handling of suspense is masterful, as is its portrayal of human fallibility.  As the adage goes, there's more than one way to make a cinematic masterpiece, and Luchino Visconti seems to have proved that time and again in his filmmaking career.  And that is how he began, with Ossessione, his darkest, most nihilistic, most compelling work.

Film Synopsis

Gino Costa, an itinerant labourer, arrives at a roadside café-cum-petrol station.  The owner, Giuseppe Bragana, offers him temporary work, which he accepts - because he is attracted to his employer's wife, Giovanna.  Repulsed by her much older husband, Giovanna is ready to take Gino as her lover.  When Giovanna's passion for him grows too intense, Gino decides to move on.  He tags along with a Spanish tramp and ends up looking for work in the nearby town of Ferrara.  Here, he meets up with Giovanna and her husband once again.  They persuade him to return to their home.  On the way back, Gino and Giovanna kill Giuseppe, making it appear that he died in a road accident.   With Giuseppe out of the way, the young couple are free to start a new life together.  Unfortunately, Gino becomes increasingly troubled by his conscience, and his love for Giovanna soon fades...