Soldati depicts a desolate Italy dominated by solitude and lacking in crowd scenes. Here the conflict between the ghosts of Fascism and the ethical tensions characterising the birth of the new Italy unfold in the manner of a painful but compelling moral fable populated by guilty people, losers and rejects. Through the protagonists’ journey, Soldati succeeds in depicting the rebirth of the feeling of human solidarity as few others at the time were able.
A Fascist fleeing towards the French border after the Liberation is joined by his young son. Here, a project for a film on emigration (which he will later conclude with Il cammino della speranza, directed by Pietro Germi, who here plays one of the protagonists) is transformed into a parable about the evils of Fascism as seen through the eyes of the child. It is an adventure tale into which Soldati pours all of his love for Stevenson.
If at the time the film seemed like an attempt by the ‘calligraphist’ Soldati to participate in the fashion for Neorealist or partisan-themed films, today we can clearly identify a baroque, noir influence that aligns it with the best Hollywood cinema of the decade, and the presence of certain tones has reminded many writers of the films of Orson Welles.
The virtuoso inn scene, whose atmosphere more closely resembles von Sternberg than Rossellini, is dominated by the pure figure of Pierina, who recalls some of the bewitching female portraits to be found in Soldati’s literary work. “Here the director moves the camera with the skill of a great choreographer, defining an environment, its values and even its language. It is the most beautiful portrayal Italian cinema has yet offered of Piedmont and mountain life, an admirable exercise in direction and social psychology guided by the curiosity and clarity of an ‘eye’ that knows how to capture a world with the light of Piedmont, the mountains and the border” (Goffredo Fofi).
In this film, in which he once again demonstrates his skilful use of sets, Soldati depicts a desolate Italy dominated by solitude and lacking in crowd scenes. Here the conflict between the ghosts of Fascism and the ethical tensions characterising the birth of the new Italy unfold in the manner of a painful but compelling moral fable populated by guilty people, losers and rejects. Through the protagonists’ journey, Soldati succeeds in depicting the rebirth of the feeling of human solidarity as few others at the time were able.