Giacomo l'idealista

Giacomo L'Idealista is for the most part a conventionally made period adaptation of a literary work from the late 19th century, done in the style of the early 1940s in Italy that was described as "calligraphic": featuring filigrees of formalism and delicate, meticulous recreation.The background is the Risorgimento about which there is some discussion but the main mechanics of the plot are the separation of the lovers after the innocent girl is victimized by the decadent wastrel son of the count, and the prissiness of the Catholic community in forcing the girl to be kept out of sight because her presence might promote a "scandal" in a noble family. Toward the end of the film, a bravura passage shows promise of some of the great work director Alberto Lattuada was to do later. The heroine Celestina rebels, escapes from her confinement, and treks through the snow to rejoin her lover. The culminating moral of the story is that a professor of philosophy who had been working on a book about the aspirations of the future abandons his project, when he has come to a realization of the harshness and unfairness of real life. Lattuada makes this conclusion convincing and touching.