One of Federico Fellini’s early masterpieces, La Strada projects the director’s fabulist sensibilities onto an intimate love triangle set on society’s margins in a rapidly modernizing Italy. Giulietta Masina (Fellini’s wife and life-long collaborator) stars as a wide-eyed provincial girl sold to a brutish traveling daredevil (Anthony Quinn) in order to bail out her poor family. Their reluctant partnership grows into a kind of love, as she becomes an invaluable part of his sideshow attraction and lonely life. But their quiet communion is upended when a charming but self-satisfied fool from a rival circus tries to win the young lady’s hand. All of that carnival-esque Fellini magic is on full display here, but elegantly textured into the sweetness and melancholy of a peasant romance. In Italian with English subtitles.
“The first film that can be called entirely Felliniesque.” – Roger Ebert
“Signor Fellini has used his small cast, and, equally important, his camera, with the unmistakable touch of an artist. His vignettes fill his movie with beauty, sadness, humor and understanding.” – A.H. Weiler, The New York Times
