The Fiancés
(I fidanzati)
With Anna Canzi, Carlo Cabrini.
Italy, 1963, 35mm, black & white, 77 min.
Italian with English subtitles.
Print source: Cinecittà Luce
The separation of a seemingly estranged couple is revealed almost wordlessly, though music, dance and remarkable crosscutting in the breathtaking opening scene of Ermanno Olmi’s classic and understatedly romantic portrait of hesitant young love and Italy’s postwar economic rebirth. One of the key Italian films of the Sixties, I fidanzati is a moving expression of the poetic reinvention of neorealism at work in Olmi’s early cinema through his sensitive use of non-actors and his careful avoidance of melodrama in favor of a documentary-like attention to the quotidian and the quiet moments between action. A gentle, almost Tati-esque humor underscores Olmi’s compassionate and subtle critique of the capitalist and deeply classist forces transforming Italy.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
The Fiancés
Numbered Days
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Cronaca nera
Sweet Deceptions
Nobody's Children
The White Angel
Tormento
Chains
Girl with a Suitcase
La spiaggia
Family Diary
Who is Without Sin
