LA STRADA seems to end the same way it begins. A defeated man gets drunk and wanders to a windswept beach, where he breaks down in profound isolation and realizes how utterly alone he is. The callous brute is Zampanò, a traveling circus strongman who, in an act of breathtaking cruelty, has deserted a woman he could never acknowledge he loved. Her name is Gelsomina, a happy yet slow-witted woman sold by her mother into slavery to replace her sister, Rose, who died while working for Zampanò. The connection between Gelsomina and her sister Rose is clear: How many women has Zampanò purchased into indentured servitude? How many has he raped, whipped, and psychologically tortured? How long has this cycle of abuse been perpetuated? And what does the cruel world Zampanò represent say about the corrupt body politic of a postwar Italy, one that for years had been raped and brutalized by the vicious force of Italian Fascism?

The emotional and symbolic significance of these questions become the center of a heart-wrenching odyssey through a war-torn landscape of broken characters and senseless cruelty. What makes it even harder to watch comes from witnessing the perfectly Chaplinesque performance of Giulietta Masina, who plays the doe-eyed and wholesome Gelsomina. Rightfully called the "female Chaplin" by critics, Masina's gestural, expressive performance is one of the purest and brightest I've seen. Watching her get violated by Anthony Quinn's equally stunning performance as Zampanò is enough to make the hardest cynic immensely soft. Quinn channels savagery incredibly well, but he's also able to spill loneliness that bleeds through the cracks in his rough exterior. Together, Quinn and Masina are revelations of the highest order. 

LA STRADA is a subtle experience that sneaks up on you. It's a cold and bleak world that exists on the edges of a postwar Italian landscape, rooted in neorealist soil but never fully absorbed by its political or historical sediment. It's tragic, but there's also this lyrical, maybe even mythical quality to the film shrouded by all sorts of abstract gestures and symbols. It evokes a folktale mood of the rural poor and the sacrifices people make to survive. It takes a voyage into death through scrublands and waste grounds while suggesting that brutality persists, even as innocence dies. It ends as it begins, on a bleak and windy beach, reaching towards a crude, secluded outcast whose conscience has been seared and maimed, and who will keep eternalizing the story of abuse in order to preserve his own solitude.

Fellini Ranked