IL GRIDO (1957)

In an Italian village, Irma receives news that her husband, who left her and moved to Australia years ago, has died. For seven years, Irma has kept house with Aldo, a worker at a sugar refinery, and they have a young daughter, Rosina. Aldo thinks this is good news as the two can finally get married, but Irma tells him that some months ago, "something changed"; she met and fell in love with another man. After slapping the shit out of Irma in public, Aldo leaves with Rosina and goes on the road. Their first stop is at the home of Aldo's former lover Elvia, but though there are still feelings on both sides, Aldo is too gutted by Irma's rejection to successfully rekindle the relationship. After catching a ride with a trucker, Aldo and Rosina wind up at an isolated roadside gas station run by Virginia, an attractive widow who is caring for her senile father. After an awkward beginning, Aldo and Virginia become lovers, though when Rosina sees the two making out in the dirt, she tries to run away. Soon, Virginia puts her father in a nursing home and Aldo puts Rosina on a bus back to Irma, but the two still can't get settled, so Aldo leaves, trying to find a job at a riverside fishing village where he falls in with Andreina, a prostitute. Still restless, and not able to forget Irma, Aldo goes back home only to find the town in the midst of a strike action protesting the coming of a military base next to the sugar refinery. [Spoiler!] Finding that Irma has settled down and has another child, Aldo wanders to the refinery, empty due to the strike, and climbs to the top of a tower. Irma follows him and waves to him from below. Aldo waves back but then falls to his death.

This fairly early film by Michelangelo Antonioni is like a dry run for his later, more famous 60s films about alienation: from nature, from society, from lovers, of the bourgeoisie, though here the focus is on the working class—there are no sleek well-dressed beautiful people, only rough and earthy folks who are barely getting by. Antonioni is known for his use of landscapes with interesting architecture, but here the landscapes are natural (fields and beaches) or industrial (the gas station, the refinery). The alienation being focused on is that of the working class man who can only channel his feelings of disappointment and depression into violence or apathy toward the women whom he thinks should save him. American actor Steve Cochran, who specialized in inarticulate but sexy tough guys, is excellent here, keeping Aldo just this side of sympathetic despite the poor choices he makes, though I don't think Aldo sees his situations as the results of his own choices. Alida Valli is just as good as Irma who is not a one-dimensional villain. Her reason for not marrying Aldo is not explained terribly well, but we see that her choice was not easy for her, and she retains a connection to Aldo right to the end. Dorian Gray is fine as Virginia. American actor Betsy Blair seems a little too artificially perky as Elvia, and never quite seems credible as a past lover of Aldo's. Though a fairly grim movie, there are a couple of moments of humor, including when Virginia's father teaches Rosina the Marseillaise, singing, wild-eyed, "Dynamite the mansions, stab the cowardly bourgeoisie!" which is actually close in spirit to the actual lyrics. As for the climax, some reviews refer to Aldo committing suicide, but it seems clear to me that he falls in a moment of vertigo, swaying a bit before plummeting. One theory I read is that he just doesn't have the will to stop himself, which seems about right. Also known as The Outcry. Pictured are Blair and Cochran. [Criterion Channel]