Where Is Freedom? (1954) User Reviews

Life can be a dream in prison but a nightmare when you get out...

[Sorsimus · 6/10 · 18 February 2003]

"Neorealist" comedy from Rossellini with the unimitable Toto as a barber who has a hard time adjusting back to society after serving 22 years in prison for a crime of passion.

What's great about this film is the strong theme behind the story. When you're locked away for a long time the real world becomes a dreamlike vision of a paradise. Paradoxically, the world can be the least tolerant place to those just released from prison.

Toto's comedy works wonderfully to create a man that experiences this disillusionment even up to the point where the very reasons he had for the crime of passion 22 years ago are questioned.

It's not a masterpiece: some sequences are included for no apparent reason and add nothing to the film, but a good idea, great casting (especially minor parts), good use of dramatic or realistic elements to make the comedy parts seem less "sweet" and, of course, the great Toto make watching this one worth your while.

Cute.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 28 September 2013]

This film stars Totò as Salvatore--a guy who's been in prison for 22 years. Despite this, he's pretty happy in prison--he has friends, a job and he has food and a bed. When he is paroled, he is initially happy and looks forward to life on the outside. However, when he sees how hard life is, how despicable some of his 'friends' are outside and how difficult it is to find work, he longs for prison once again. So, he decides to dig up his old prison escape plan and just do it in reverse! Most of the story is told through flashbacks, as evidently the prison folks found out (not surprisingly) and he's brought before judges to explain himself.

While I would never call this film hilarious, it is mildly funny and quite agreeable. However, understand that although it IS a film directed by Roberto Rossellini, it's really not a Neo-realist film (mostly since it stars a big-name actor), though it has some qualities reminiscent of his older Neo-realist films. Well worth seeing.

Don't expect a typical Toto' comedy

[palmiro · 8/10 · 18 September 2009]

You might expect this film to be another comedic romp with Toto' in the lead. I didn't find that much humor in it actually. It was much more of a critique of the mean-spiritedness (meschinita') that had gripped much of Italy in the post-war period leading up to the "boom". Not one single likable character apart from Toto' himself, and all of them absorbed in their petty maneuverings. The highlight of the baseness of the characters was, of course, the revelation that some had taken advantage of the round-up of Roman Jews in 1944 to grab their property--and then 10 years later refused to surrender it to the survivors.

Hardly "laugh out loud" funny but widespread narcissism in Italian society proves somewhat amusing

[Turfseer · 6/10 · 3 November 2022]

If you're the director of a film, it doesn't help much to lose interest in it before it's finished. But that's what happened when Director Roberto Rossellini gave up on Dov'è la libertà? (otherwise known as Where is Freedom?), which was ultimately released in 1954 after other directors took up completing the project.

The film stars Toto who was considered the "Charlie Chaplin" of Italian cinema principally in the 50's and 60's. It's a comedy about a barber Salvatore Lo Jocono who is paroled from prison after serving 22 years for murdering a man in a "crime of passion' who "dishonored" his now deceased wife.

There's a framing device inside a courtroom in which we learn Salvatore was rearrested following his parole for breaking back into the very prison he was released from. Salvatore explains his actions to the judge which are related in a series of flashbacks.

Act 2 is roughly divided into three sections: 1) Salvatore's quest to meet a woman; 2) a failed attempt to find lodging and 3) a reunion with his in-laws whom he hasn't seen since they were children.

The comedy stems from Salvatore's mistaken belief that the world he finds upon his release will be better than what he experienced when he was in prison.

In the first section, the genial barber meets a tall woman and they go to a hall where a marathon dance festival is held. Appalled that the dancers who have been dancing for a few days practically non-stop and not being provided with any refreshments, he complains to the promoter.

In his first major disappointment, Salvatore agrees to pay for food for the dancers with his meagre savings with a promise from the promoter to be reimbursed the next day. But the promoter shuts down the entire event after the overall organizer fails to pay the rent. Not only does he lose most of his money but a bed as well as the dancers were permitting him to sleep in a room on the premises.

More disappointment is in store when a nasty landlady eventually puts him out on the street. To add insult to injury, the woman's browbeaten daughter (who Salvatore thought he might have a chance with) indifferently dismisses his plea for her help in getting the mother to change her mind.

Around this time in the narrative, Salvatore's meetup with an also recently released prison buddy almost ends in disaster when the ex-con tricks him into passsing counterfeit currency.

Salvatore finally believes he's been saved when he finds his wife's brothers who now have good jobs working at a slaughterhouse. They throw a party for him where he meets a man they refer to as a "brother-in-law." The way one of the brothers explains it, the man was a good friend of Salvatore's wife who helped her during her illness before her death.

Salvatore is willing to overlook the reality that the man was his wife's lover. But he cannot overlook the devastating information the man reveals which was Salvatore's wife manipulated her cuckolded husband into believing that the man he eventually killed had dishonored her. In actuality, the whole family knew the wife had grown tired of the man Salvatore ended up killing following an affair she was having with him.

Salvatore's naive belief that the family who took him in were benevolent souls is dashed when it's revealed his in-laws stole the property of a Jewish man whom they probably turned into the Germans during the war. Their idea is for Salvatore to lose his temper and possibly do in this Jewish man who has returned with threats of a lawsuit that could bankrupt them. When Salvatore learns what actually happened, he of course backs off.

The coup de grace occurs when the in-laws introduce Salvatore to a young woman, Agnesina (Vera Molinar), who he falls in love with and hopes to run away with. She however reveals she's now pregnant by the "old man" (the "brother-in-law"?) and intends to stay put as this will be her means of support.

During the climax Salvatore shouts down his attorney and begs to be incarcerrated. The prosecutor instead asks for a large fine as he doesn't want to give Salvatore the satisfaction of going back to prison which is what he has requested. But when Salvatore is unable to pay the fine, he ends up back at his old haunts anyway.

This is not "laugh out loud" humor by any measure but the depiction of widespread narccism in Italian society may result in a few chuckles here and there. Toto (also never really "laugh out loud" funny) manages to tackle the material in a perfunctory but occasionally amusing manner. On that basis, it earns my tepid recommendation.

A Dreary, Roberto Rossellini, Comedy Dud

[strong-122-478885 · 3/10 · 11 August 2014]

Written and directed by Italian film-maker, Roberto Rossellini, 1954's Where Is Freedom? (aka. Dov'e La Liberta?) quite clearly proved to me that, when it came to comedy, this dude was a downright clueless buffoon.

Where Is Freedom? was such a limp-wristed, humourless production, all round, that it didn't have the ability to encourage even one single laugh, or snicker, or giggle from this viewer who's always game for a chuckle, or two, to brighten up his day.

One of this film's major deficits was the miscasting of actor 'Toto' as Salvatore Lojacono, the story's main character. To say that 'Toto' was really terrible in his part would truly be an understatement.

The best way to describe 'Toto' would be to say that he was, in all appearances, a bargain-basement Buster Keaton. But, unlike, Keaton, 'Toto' had absolutely no charm or comic-timing, whatsoever.

In 'Where Is Freedom?', Salvatore is a repeated offender who has been in prison for 22 years. Due to such good behaviour, he is released on parole 3 years early.

Salvatore immediately heads to Rome and, before long, finds his experiences (all unpleasant) in the "free world" cause him to crave his life of relative leisure and security back in prison.

And so, Salvatore makes deliberate efforts to land himself back in jail, asap, which he views as his real home.

If you ask me, I think that this picture sent out a really screwy message in regards to the overall attraction of prison life.

Where Is Freedom? also lost itself some significant points for its blatant product placement of the Coca Cola logo?

One would honestly think that director Roberto Rossellini would have chosen to plug an Italian product in his movie, rather than cater to the Americans.

A very awkward effort at humor

[Barbouzes · 4/10 · 7 March 2018]

Toto is always great. Here...he turns out to be the only redemptive feature of a very awkward script. The topic is good (the chronic evils of life and people generally- it might be Italy in 1954, or anywhere anytime.). But the story is poorly written (or edited), the depictions are heavy handed, and the subject matter is so dark that all comic touches in the script feel forced or grossly out of touch with the ambiance. I have seen many Italian movies from the 50s -60s masterfully juggling tragedy and comedy in brilliant plots (check out the films of Monicelli, Scola, Risi,Germi, Zampa and even Fellini), but I am afraid this Rossellini production fails absolutely at that delicate enterprise.