It is often reductive to link a film to a single theme. While Il cammino della speranza addresses the still-relevant issue of illegal immigration, the film encompasses so much more. It offers a merciless portrait of a country torn apart and devastated, and it tells the story of a centuries-old tradition of social solidarity crumbling under the pressures of progress and urbanisation. It is also a popular love story that incorporates a journey of redemption, fraught with a cynical, fraudulent plan and dangerous encounters with switchblades. Pietro Germi, as he masterfully does, balances the harshest social commentary with a range of dramatic and sentimental effects (a mastery of balance evident also in his later, more famous films such as Divorzio all’italiana and Sedotta e abbandonata, where drama is replaced by biting comedy). Il cammino della speranza begins with the closure of a Sicilian mine and the workers’ futile struggle to avoid unemployment. Desperate to escape their bleak situation, a large group of villagers entrust their last savings to a profiteer who promises to take them to France, rumoured to be a sort of El Dorado. From the relentless heat of the South, the journey traverses Italy to the equally unforgiving expanses of the Alps. And beyond that? We don’t know; the only certainty is hope.

Andrea Meneghelli

It wasn’t a very adventurous story. Instead, it focused more on social issues, from unemployment to illegal emigration. While lacking traditional adventure, it offered an epic sense of journey and collective endeavour, enriched with the human values that form its core. The film didn’t present a broad picture of Sicilian society. There was no mafia or barons. Instead, it centred on miners and a fugitive, an almost inevitable character when it comes to Sicily. It was a choral film, portraying men up close, each with their own story, embarking on a journey through an Italy that rejects them, where they struggle to live. Ultimately, the film conveyed a message of brotherhood and hope.

Pietro Germi, in L’avventurosa storia del cinema italiano. Da Ladri di biciclette a La grande guerra, curated by Franca Faldini and Goffredo Fofi, Edizioni Cineteca di Bologna, Bologna 2011