sonoioio

The renunciation of oneself, one's ideas, and one's faith, which is also the protagonist's revolutionary strength, is also realized through her own unjust and liberating sacrifice.

During the Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc (Ingrid Bergman), a young girl from Lorraine, hears the voices of saints urging her to present herself before the Dauphin of France (Jose Ferrer) and to join his army in the name of God and the Kingdom of a united France. The knight Bertrand de Poulengy (Ray Teal) immediately sides with her, and after their meeting with the Dauphin, the Dauphin's cousin, Duke Jean d'Alençon (John Emery), also becomes one of her most faithful followers. After numerous victories, during the siege of Compiegne, the Maid of Orleans is captured by Burgundian troops and sold to the Duke of Bedford (Frederick Worlock), English regent of the French crown.

Director Victor Fleming focuses heavily on dialogue, with a slow narrative and few action scenes; the screenplay by Maxwell Anderson and Andrew Solt is very faithful to the historical chronology of events; the performances of the main characters by Bergman and Ferrer are very accurate and full of just the right charisma; particular attention was paid to the reconstruction of settings and costumes, which earned two Oscars, with a third to reward the production effort.

Best moment: the Inquisition tribunal ridiculed by a young girl. A must-see for lovers of chivalric epics and history buffs.

A context in which much (too much?) blood is spilled, but figuratively speaking, it's also deeply offensive, on a personal level. The film is ultimately just a pretext to show a massacre.

In a villa overlooking the bay (actually the Sabaudia lagoon), Countess Federica Donati is killed by her second husband Filippo, faking a suicide, but the killer is in turn killed by a mysterious man who makes her body disappear. Renata Donati (Claudine Auger), the Count's daughter, together with her husband Simone (Claudio Camaso), sets out to search for her missing father. Franco Ventura (Chris Avram), the Countess's executor, and his lover Laura (Anna Maria Rosati), also arrive at the bay, but in the meantime, strange disappearances and deaths begin to occur. Everything always revolves around the strange fisherman Alberto (Luigi Pistilli) and his supposed parents.

Director Mario Bava is a visionary, because he has the merit of creating something from nothing, the slasher cinematic style; the screenplay, written by the director in collaboration with Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni, Dardano Sacchetti, Gianfranco Barberi, and Gene Luotto, is decidedly poor, lacking cohesion or character development; the actors do what they can, which isn't much.

Best moments: How deep can a billhook penetrate a human body? A must-see for those with a strong stomach, for lovers of intense scenes, and for a "pop-eye" evening on the couch with Dracula.

People who find themselves outside their own country, unable to return due to discrimination. Exiles in a foreign land, without rights, without an identity, invisible as pariahs. Individuals adrift, trying to stabilize their precarious situation with a fleeting love, inevitably destined to burn out quickly.

In the restless Paris of 1938, German refugee Dr. Ravic (Charles Boyer) meets Joan Madou (Ingrid Bergman), an emotionally fragile woman going through a difficult period in her relationship, and their story intertwines in a whirlwind of passion. Haunted by his past, Ravic encounters unrecognized Ivon Haake (Charles Laughton), the SS torturer who killed his beloved before he fled Germany, and confides in his friend Boris Morosov (Louis Calhern) that he intends to plan his murder.

Director Lewis Milestone was forced to drastically reduce the original story, which detracted from the narrative and made the film excessively convoluted; the screenplay, written by the director himself in collaboration with Harry Brown, based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, is slow and lackluster, failing to properly encapsulate the original story; personally, with the exception of the always excellent Bergman, I found both Laughton and Boyer to be inadequate.

Best quote: "I'm not a good actress. I've only played small parts. In Italy." oh come on, Ingrid, don't hide behind this false modesty. A must-see for lovers of noir atmospheres and tormented love stories.