The kind of intelligent humanist film we rarely see anymore. Mastroinni plays a fruitkin leftist preparing to be exiled by Fascist authorities on the day Hitler arrives in Italy. The entire film takes place in a tenement complex and uses some of the devices made famous by Hitchcock in REAR WINDOW. It makes us think about history as heroic vision(as promulgated by propaganda and myth) and as private lives with weaknesses and vulnerabilities that makes people what they really are.
Rating: 4/5
