Ein kurzer Urlaub

It seems to me that this movie was an adaptation of Thomas Mann " The Magic Mountain " but i see no credit. I just couldn't help but notice the strong comparisons between the book/movie however although i did prefer the book, the movie should be recommended....if you can find it!!.

Vittorio De Sica collaborated again on this excellent film with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, as he had in the postwar "Shoe Shine," "The Bicycle Thief," Umberto D," and their 60s French film "A Young World." They have fashioned, from a story by Rodolfo Sonego, a realistic and at times romantic drama about an Italian housewife (Florinda Bolkan in an amazing performance), living in a Milan suburb and married to a crass husband (Renato Salvatori) who treats her like a pack animal.

She supports the husband, unemployed because of an accident as well as her three sons and several in-laws, by working in a grim factory worse than that in Petri's "The Working Class Goes to Heaven" or Rossellini's "Europa '51."

She collapses from exhaustion and TB and is sent at company expense for "una breve vacanza" at a sanatorium in the Dolomites. Here she experiences a major change and awakening, not merely physical and emotional (as in a tender relationship with a machinist) but a profound radical change in which she examines for the first time her fundamental nature as a human being and as a woman. She can never be the same after she returns home.

Italian class and sex attitudes are perceptively analyzed here, and there is un unforgettable characterization by Adriana Asti as a foul-mouthed yet compassionate woman in the last days of a terminal illness. (Remember her in Bertolucci's "Before the Revolution"?)

I find it ironic that though this great "feminist" movie was written and directed by men, it is more effective in that regard in ways that its contemporary "Swept Away," made by a woman, is not.

Those viewers who are feeling a little down about their own particular life situation may be a bit cheered when they see what Clara Mataro's daily grind is like, in Vittorio de Sica's 1973 offering "A Brief Vacation." The sole breadwinner in her family, living in a dingy, cramped apartment on the outskirts of Milan with her loutish husband, thuggish brother-in-law, waspishly senile mother-in-law and three young sons, her torturous job at a rubber factory is just another element in her daily hell. No wonder that when the National Health clinic forces her to go to a sanatorium in the Italian Alps to cure her incipient TB, Clara views this as the titular brief vacation. (If only the U.S. had a health care system like this!) Away from her usual troubles and surrounded by new friends, Clara inevitably blossoms, and that metamorphosis is wonderful to see. Florinda Bolkan, who had greatly impressed me in such marvelous gialli as "Lizard in a Woman's Skin" and "Don't Torture a Duckling," is superb here as Clara, especially when the prospect of a possible love affair at the sanatorium arises. Clara's fellow patients are a very interesting bunch; de Sica, the old neorealist master, directs winningly yet unobtrusively; son Manuel de Sica's theme song "Stay" is lush and superromantic; and the snowy backdrop of the Alpine countryside is often quite spectacular. So, does the film give poor Clara the reward of a happy ending? I would never dream of telling, but those who have seen such earlier de Sica classics as "The Bicycle Thief" and "Umberto D" might be able to guess. Clara Mataro is a remarkably well-drawn character, and my feeling is that most viewers will be very happy that they have spent a few brief hours with her....

This is the story of a woman given a respite from her grim life as a devoted wife and mother. She takes her illness in stride and goes off to the mountains to a sanatorium for a cure. While there, she meets people she would never have met otherwise and has time to experience a life other than one of drudgery and selfless devotion. She is even given a chance of escape/salvation. Will she take it? Ah, but that would be a spoiler!

This superb movie shows that realism can be moving and gripping. This woman's plight, her decency and her quiet heroism make for one of the best motion pictures ever made. If it could be released on video or DVD, I'm sure it would do well. Let's hope the owner of the rights to this movie soon figures this out.

This is not an adaptation of THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN. The only thing the two works have in common is that they both take place in a sanitarium. It's the story of a woman who has a horrible life of hard work and no appreciation. She takes ill and is sent by the government to a sanitarium where she thrives. Getting sick is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to her. I found this film extremely moving. Florinda Bolkan gives a great performance of subtle realism. A BRIEF VACATION is a brilliant film, right up there with De Sica's best, and it came late in his career. He directed only one more film afterward. I saw this film a couple of times in the 70s. I still think about scenes from it.