Now we travel to Italy for SENSO, a lavish 1954 melodrama set during the Italian-Austrian war of unification in the 1860s. This epic is beautifully shot in lush color and both the intimate dialogue scenes and big battle scenes are masterfully staged.
Alida Valli stars as an Italian Countess, sympathetic to a group of Italian rebels, led by her cousin (Massimo Girotti) who has recently run afoul of an Austrian officer (Farley Granger) in a confrontation resulting in an impending duel. When Valli meets with Granger to attempt to talk him out of the duel, she falls instantly and passionately in love (or lust) with the handsome rogue and enters into an affair with him, despite their opposing positions.
The war eventually pulls the lovers apart, and Valli gets more and more desperate as she must fight to reconnect with and even protect Granger, who is off fighting. It’s clear early on that Valli is more invested in the affair than Granger – for Valli it’s a life-changing awakening and she’s willing to throw away her entire life and status in the name of passion. For Granger it’s yet another exciting dalliance in a life of exciting dalliances.
So, the movie is not so much a love story (though there is plenty of that in the opening scenes) as it is an examination of how much this woman is willing to destroy herself for a man. Some of this process is tedious – the middle passages of the film drag.
Still, I was impressed with how far the movie was willing to go with this story. The premise was followed all the way to the end of the line to its tragic logical conclusions, and the last half hour or so is really compelling drama, right up until the last haunting shot.
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