El inocente

In the Nineteenth Century, in Italy, the atheist and aristocrat Tullio Hermil (Giancarlo Giannini) is married with Giuliana Hermil (Laura Antonelli) and has a paramour, Teresa Raffo (Jennifer O'Neill). He decides to leave his wife and to stay with Teresa, but after a period, she dispenses with him. Tullio comes back to his wife, but she had an affair with a writer, friend of his brother, and is pregnant. Tullio asks Giuliana to make an abort, but she refuses. When the child is born, Tullio hates him, but Giuliana tries to protect the baby. In the end, a tragedy happens. This movie is an intense drama, and certainly not indicated for a general public. The cast has an outstanding performance under the magnificent direction of Luchino Visconti. The movie shows also a wonderful and very detailed reconstitution of the Italian aristocracy in the Nineteenth Century. The very sad story does not bring redemption to any character. In Brazil, it is only available on VHS, but it deserves to be offered to the viewers by the distributors on DVD, to highlight the beauty of the scenes. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `O Inocente' (`The Innocent')

Visconti's final film is a brutally beautiful masterpiece. As ever, the film is fetishistic in its attention to detail (witness the scene in which the two leads are having sex and the camera spends ages examining Luara Antonelli's exquisite shoes, bodice and stockings).

Giancarlo Giannini and Antonelli play a married couple whose pleasure and displeasure at each other's extramarital affairs border on the masochistic.

Giannini, the macho man whose personal moral code allows him not only to take a lover but to tell his wife in great detail about his lustings for his lover, is terrifying as the husband unable to choose between his wife and his lover, hurting both and eventually pleasing neither. But it is often overlooked that Antonelli, whose acting roles prior to 'L'innocente', featured such greats as 'Dr. Goldfoot and the Sex Bombs' and 'The Eroticist', startles as a woman who, although on first glance is 'more sinned against than sinning' but is equally manipulative and sadistic in her relationship with her husband, toying with him as he furiously attempts to make her admit to her indiscretions.

love often used misspelled abused love taken for a selfish game manipulating shame

he loved himself apart from that a selfish search for someone to confirm he is what he only pretends to be

was she crazy or insane was her love so true she bared the pain for her it was no game and yet she lost...

beautiful movie, timeless! delightfull to see how this movie takes his time to tell a story, the script is strong, the music emotional, the actors impressive, I can only write down positive aspects, thanks to visconti's perfectionism and talent this movie became more than a traditional story about love and hate. the thin line between the beauty of the movie and the manipulating selfish desire of the story creates a strong emotional masterpiece that will no one left untouched

Luchino Visconti's l'Innocente is a beautiful film. Magnificent details fill up the screen on every shot, as he has done so masterfully with other period films. It's also a strange, intense and erotic story set in the high society of Rome in the late 1800s. Giancarlo Gianinni is magnificent as an erratic, determined, egotistical and passionate man who alternates between arrogance and jealously, between lucidity and rage. Laura Antonelli is wonderful as his beautiful, repressed and enigmatic wife, who quietly surprises us at various points in this torrid tale. Jennifer O'Neill is very good as a mysterious and detached object of desire. This is a melodrama with some deeply disturbing themes. Occasionally, supporting characters show flashes of morality that contrast with the self-indulgent and self-destructive natures of the three protagonists. But the film does not need to have one character to provide a moral compass for the story, because the audience can see all too clearly everyone's very bad behavior.

Luchino Visconti is one of my favorite directors. I think Death in Venice is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. This film begins with the credits shown over a book with its pages being turned by a hand reminding me of Jeanne Cocteau's beginning for Beauty and the Beast (1946). Tullio (Giancarlo Gianni) is an aristocrat married to Laura Antonelli but he fools around shamelessly with Jennifer O'Neil. He's a bullshit artist at high speed, but one day he gets his come-uppance. He seems not to care about Antonelli's feelings, and one day she cheats on him with a novelist/writer. She is left pregnant, and Tullio is devastated. He cannot accept the child (who all thinks is his own). Visconti's films always have a certain disdain for rich people, and here his contempt is risen to art while telling a very engaging story. Gianni's performance is powerful stuff, while Antonelli is both beautiful and sad in equal measures. Not as good as Death in Venice but excellent nonetheless.