Under the Sun of Rome

Another little-known film that deserves classic status, Under the Sun of Rome won the Best Italian Film award at the Venice Film Festival. Praised upon its original release as noble, beautiful, even irresistible, it was also dismissed by some leftist critics for its gentler, sometimes comic form of naturalism, known as neorealism rosa. But as delicate as Castellani’s approach often is, his gritty vision still emphasizes the hardships of life in war-torn Rome. A lovely, incisive portrait of adolescents in the crowded San Giovanni quarter of Rome during the last years of WWII, the film prefigures such classics as Fellini’s I Vitelloni and Truffaut’s Small Change. Idling their days away “under the sun of Rome,” the teens swim, steal, fall in love, and try to ignore the war. Contemporary critics were astonished by this work which “almost invents itself as it unravels,” masterfully switching tone from “the picaresque to the tragic, from the innocent to the brutal.” Beautifully acted by a cast of non-professionals, the entrancing Under the Sun of Rome features an early appearance by the great comic Alberto Sordi. —TIFF Bell Lightbox