Word: antonietta
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Essentially a two-character drama, the movie is set on the May day in 1938 when all of Rome turned out to rally for Hitler. Loren and her most durable costar, Marcello Mastroianni, play the only tenants of a cavernous apartment building who remain at home during the festivities. Antonietta, an ignorant working-class housewife, has stayed behind to clean up the cramped flat she shares with her boorish husband and six kids. Gabriele, a bachelor who is an out-of-work radio announcer and antiFascist, has shut himself in to contemplate his certain confinement by il Duce...
...Antonietta and Gabriele have little in common except their loneliness, but they meet and become fast friends. Their relationship soon provides the film makers with an excuse to explore the sexual underpinnings of Fascist ideology. As the downtrodden Antonietta falls in love with the sensitive Gabriele, she suddenly begins to question the macho ethic of her tyrannical husband. She senses, too, that there may be a correlation between her miserable married life and the authoritarianism of Mussolini's Italian state. Even though Gabriele eventually reveals himself to be a homosexual, Antonietta takes him to bed. Having discovered freedom...
...recalls De Chirico's art as well as the character of Fascist architecture; he floods the sound track with a blaring radio broadcast of the off-screen Hitler rally. Ultimately, A Special Day's apocalyptic atmosphere provides the perfect backdrop for its star's performance. When Antonietta seizes her moment of passion in this frigid world, Loren's warmth can-and does-burn up the screen.-Frank Rich