Considered by French critic Georges Sadoul "one of the most beautiful Italian films ever made," Senso chronicles the relationship between an earthy, materialistic Austrian officer (Granger) and his artistocratic Italian mistress amidst the Risorgimento battle for independence and the unification of Italy in Austrian-occupied Venice in 1866. Sumptuously shot (in part by the great G. R. Ado, who died in a car crash during the filming), the film is an intriguing amalgam of the neorealism of Visconti's earlier work and the lush romanticism of his later films. Because of the obvious parallels the film draws to contemporary Italian history, Senso suffered at the hands of producers and censors. While the HFA print is an English-dubbed version, there is compensation in the richness of the dialogue, written by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles.