Rocco e i suoi fratelli

It's the last day of All Saints vacation weekend, it's raining, and the only food I have in the house is food that needs something else to be not gross (like rye crisps). So of course I'm delaying my inevitable drenched venture to Esselunga by staying in my warm room and writing in here.

Last week, F and I went to Gnomo, Milan's community art cinema, to see Rocco e i suoi fratelli, a 1960 film by the great Luchino Visconti. Actually we thought we were seeing Napoleotani a Milano and we didn't figure out we had mixed up the days until a Corriere della Sera movie critic came out and started talking about scenes of violence and prostitutes and false moralism. I was a little bummed that we had traded a fishes-out-of-water comedy for a three-hour melodramatic opera, but I soon got over it watching the film.

This movie has traumatized me a bit, I keep thinking about it. I enjoyed seeing old Milano, the train station, the Navigli before there were so many cars to foul things up, and watching a portrayal of the southern Italian immigrant experience. The brothers together with their mother were fascinating, and Rocco, the saintly brother, was beautiful and frustrating. Nadia was a unexpected force, and I can't help but think that her fate was unfair. The 1960s scenes of violence affected me greatly, me the jaded millenial, and I've been thinking about them a great deal.

Anyways, if one has 180 minutes to spare, I would recommend this one, if only to get you thinking about a movie for more than five minutes.