The original Italian title of this film was "La Ciociara", literally "The Woman from Ciociaria", but this could not be used in English-speaking countries, where hardly anyone knows where Ciociaria is. (It's a mountainous rural area south-east of Rome). It was released as "Two Women", the title used for the English translation of the novel by Alberto Moravia upon which it is based, but even that title seems inappropriate in the context of the film, given that one of the "women" is a girl of only twelve years old.
The "two women" of the title are a mother and daughter Cesira and Rosetta. In Moravia's novel, Cesira was middle aged and Rosetta in her twenties, and the original idea was to cast Anna Magnani as Cesira and Sophia Loren as Rosetta. When, however, Vittorio De Sica became the director, he cast Loren as Cesira, making her much younger than in the novel, and made Rosetta a young girl rather than an adult.
The story is a simple one. Cesira is a widowed shopkeeper living in Rome during World War II. To escape the bombing of the city, she flees with her daughter to her native Ciociaria. While staying there, she forms a friendship with Michele, a young anti-Fascist intellectual, who is later captured by the Germans. When Rome falls to the Allies in June 1944, she decides to return to the city, but on the way she and Rosetta are raped by the Goumiers, irregular Moroccan troops attached to the French army and fighting with the Allies in Italy. (The story of Cesira and Rosetta is fictional, but the Goumiers did indeed perpetuate a series of mass rapes and murders in Italy in 1944, events which became known as the "Marocchinate", or "deeds of the Moroccans"). The rape scene is dealt with very cautiously, so much so that it was difficult to tell what was happening at the time, and what has happened to Cesira and Rosetta only becomes clear in retrospect. Today I doubt if a rape scene involving a twelve year old girl could be filmed at all.
This was the film for which Loren won an Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first actor, male or female, to win an acting Oscar for a foreign-language film. Whether she deserved to win over, say, Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is difficult to say because I have only seen the version dubbed into English, not the original Italian version, so it is difficult for me to assess the quality of her acting. I felt, however, that Loren was miscast as Cesira; she was only 25 in 1960, and it was difficult to accept her as the mother of a twelve year old girl. Although Jean-Paul Belmondo was of Italian descent he could not speak Italian, but he was cast as Michele because the producers needed a major French star to attract funding from France; his voice is therefore dubbed even in the original version.
For much of the time the film seems very slow-moving with little happening. Only at the end, when Cesira is desperately trying to help her daughter to cope with the devastating trauma of the rape does it become deeply affecting. Even so, I felt that there was not enough substance in the film to justify its reputation as a classic. 7/10.
The "two women" of the title are a mother and daughter Cesira and Rosetta. In Moravia's novel, Cesira was middle aged and Rosetta in her twenties, and the original idea was to cast Anna Magnani as Cesira and Sophia Loren as Rosetta. When, however, Vittorio De Sica became the director, he cast Loren as Cesira, making her much younger than in the novel, and made Rosetta a young girl rather than an adult.
The story is a simple one. Cesira is a widowed shopkeeper living in Rome during World War II. To escape the bombing of the city, she flees with her daughter to her native Ciociaria. While staying there, she forms a friendship with Michele, a young anti-Fascist intellectual, who is later captured by the Germans. When Rome falls to the Allies in June 1944, she decides to return to the city, but on the way she and Rosetta are raped by the Goumiers, irregular Moroccan troops attached to the French army and fighting with the Allies in Italy. (The story of Cesira and Rosetta is fictional, but the Goumiers did indeed perpetuate a series of mass rapes and murders in Italy in 1944, events which became known as the "Marocchinate", or "deeds of the Moroccans"). The rape scene is dealt with very cautiously, so much so that it was difficult to tell what was happening at the time, and what has happened to Cesira and Rosetta only becomes clear in retrospect. Today I doubt if a rape scene involving a twelve year old girl could be filmed at all.
This was the film for which Loren won an Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first actor, male or female, to win an acting Oscar for a foreign-language film. Whether she deserved to win over, say, Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is difficult to say because I have only seen the version dubbed into English, not the original Italian version, so it is difficult for me to assess the quality of her acting. I felt, however, that Loren was miscast as Cesira; she was only 25 in 1960, and it was difficult to accept her as the mother of a twelve year old girl. Although Jean-Paul Belmondo was of Italian descent he could not speak Italian, but he was cast as Michele because the producers needed a major French star to attract funding from France; his voice is therefore dubbed even in the original version.
For much of the time the film seems very slow-moving with little happening. Only at the end, when Cesira is desperately trying to help her daughter to cope with the devastating trauma of the rape does it become deeply affecting. Even so, I felt that there was not enough substance in the film to justify its reputation as a classic. 7/10.