A Special Day

Previously I had seen many pairings of Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni--next to William Powell and Myrna Loy, this is my favourite cinematic coupling--but never any works by director Scola, so I wasn't really sure what to expect, especially with it being a period piece of Italy just before the Second World War. This was a masterpiece. I could talk all day about how excellent the two stars must have been, in order to completely subvert every preconception we have come to associate with their on-screen romantic partnership (namely, Loren portraying a shy, put-upon mother of six, and Mastroianni playing a suicidal gay man) AND so convincingly. As well, I heartily recommend viewers to watch all of the extras on The Criterion Collection's ...

The first fifteen minutes or so of this film consists of a mini-documentary setting the scene as Adolf Hitler makes the train journey from Germany to meet with King Vittorio Emanuele III and Benito Mussolini in Rome to seal this friendship pact in 1938. The extensive archive footage is overlaid with a propagandist style of commentary that would have entirely fitted the cinema screenings at the time extolling the might of the Italian Empire and their new, invincible, allies. It's a grand celebration in Rome that the family of "Antonietta" (Sophia Loren) are to attend. Her husband "Emanuele" (John Vernon) takes their six children to the party whilst she remains at home attending to her chores. It's while they are away that she encounters her ...