Dimanche d'août

With a documentalist's eye, Luciano Emmer films the microcosm of Rome's beach on a beautiful Sunday of August 1949. By bike, car, vespa, train, all generations and social classes seem to migrate to Ostia and meet at the beach. Social barriers are smoothing, new couples are forming, other are breaking up... A piece of life, of freedom, of freshness with its joys and sorrows and one of Marcello Mastroianni's first role in cinema.

There were a slew of films made in Britain in the 1950s about the traditional exodus from the city to the seaside for a day out, but mostly they involved fellows with handkerchiefs tied over their heads and women in deck chairs in their scarves and raincoats. Not so in Ostia, where the Roman population know exactly how to enjoy themselves when they get a holiday and time to spend, as scantily clad as possible, frolicking around having fun. Just about every class is represented here as the wealthy and the less so all mingle together bringing with them their problems, peccadilloes and sun tan lotion. As you can imagine, this all happens in an entertainingly Italian fashion with dialogue delivered quickly and pithily as the older folks struggle to deal with the stresses and strains of the logistics whilst the younger ones flirt, have temper tantrums as generally the whole film makes you remember just why those days out were never quite a much fun as our rose-tinted memories suggest. There's a lovely scene with "Enrico" (Franco Interlenghi) and "Marcella" (Anna Baldini) taking a boat out onto the water, only for it's plug to come out and for it to sink without trace from under them that all rather sums up the personable chaos the packs ninety minutes of human beings a play before they all head home exhausted! It's busy, frenetic, funny and worryingly quite accurate at times and well worth a watch.

It's the middle of the summer, so some people in Rome head to Ostia and the beach, by train or auto or scooter or even bicycle. Some stay in Rome and play in the fountains, or go out for coffee, or work, or rob stock yards.

It's Luciano Emmer's first story feature. He had been making documentaries since 1941, and would continue to do so through his death in 2009 at the age of 91, and he hasn't strayed far from his roots here, with little snippets of minor stories, all important to the characters, but completely unremarkable to outsiders. A widower tries to start a serious relationship with another woman, but that means his daughter must go to camp; a policeman (Marcello Mastroianni in his first substantial role, though his voice is dubbed by Alberto Sordi) has gotten his girlfriend pregnant. They want to marry, but her employers have given her notice; a boy and a girl rent a pedal raft at the beach, sink it, and have to hike back miles.

Given the title, one immediately thinks of MENScHEN AM SONNTAG, and there's almost certainly a linkage, but to me it's simply a handsome little anthology of a world getting back to order after the chaos of the Depression and the Second World War.

In English, the title means 'Sunday in August' and it's quite aptly named. It makes you feel like you were eavesdropping on the lives of a few people in Rome, most of whom are stretched out on the beach and a few are struggling with some grave matters in the city itself on a hot Sunday. So it's quite a lot of little stories stitched together into a movie, kind of like little collection of vignettes.

First, there are some local boys getting ready to hit the beach & so race towards it on their bikes. Then, there's a girl trying to make a better life by going out with a richer beau, and in the process snubbing a poorer and uneducated one. The snubbed beau, unwittingly becomes involved in something very sinister in order to make quick bucks. Another story involves a large family (or was it two families?) going to the beach in an old car. There, the teenage daughter of the family meets a boy from their own locality. Yet another story involves two single parents exchanging parenting tips and phone nos. (& maybe more in future?). And there's Marcello Mastroianni in one of the stories. He plays a traffic cop and a devoted boyfriend to his pregnant girlfriend who's lost her job because of conceiving a child out of wedlock.

All stories are good in their own way. But unfortunately, the movie suffers from the same problems as any movie with a huge cast of characters does. In the end, none of the stories made any impact because the characters could not be sketched out properly in the limited time. So, things gets resolved very quickly, ending on a happy or sad note; only you can't really be expected to care with such little character development.

Mildly interesting but don't have very high hopes.

Saw on YouTube August 4, 2019, i.e., a Sunday in August. I had never heard of this movie before YouTube announced it, and other than Marcello Mastroianni, the personnel, including director Luciano Emmer, all unfamiliar to me.

The camera work and cutting are superb. The YouTube print with subtitles was crystal clear.

The movie simply serves up a day at the beach, a day made up of multiple stories of the assorted beach goers. Emmer's direction may be described as neorealistic but accomplished with a touch considerably lighter than what is seen movies such as the nearby Umberto D (1951). This movie proves that neorealism does not reside entirely on the dark side.

It may be kinder and gentler, but the believability of the action is maintained at all times. I especially enjoyed the boy-meets-girl story featuring Anna Baldini, offering moments touching and plausible in about equal measure. Who knows, maybe some of the relatives of the Roman beach goers were on Coney Island during the time of the film's action, and if they were, the stories would have been hardly different, except for a forced detour around the minefield in "Domenica".

The movie's ancestors include "People on Sunday" (1930, original title Menschen am Sontag) directed by Siodmak, Ulmer, et al., as well as the many early silent films shot with the camera planted on the beach as people clothed from head to toe frolicked in grainy waves.

Strong recommendation.