Una giornata particolare

I don't think I had done a blog post on a foreign film recently, so I decided to watch A Special Day off the DVD since it's on DVD courtesy of the Criterion Collection.

In 1938, German Führer Adolf Hitler visited Italy to meet with Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini and sign a treaty. Mussolini wanted to impress Hitler, so large cheering crowds were arranged all along the train's route and a big military parade was organized in Rome.

Antonietta Taberi (Sophia Loren) is a housewife and mother of six living in a cramped apartment with her husband Emanuele (John Vernon) and those children. All of them have a part to play in those cheering crowds at the parade, except for Mom, who's going to stay home to clean the apartment and make certain the family has dinner ready when they get home from the parade. It's not much of a life for Antonietta, whose only joy in life seems to be her mynah bird.

Worse for Antonietta, the bird escapes from its cage and flies out the window, landing on the sill of an apartment across the way. In that apartment lives Gabriele (Marcello Mastroianni), an announcer for Italian National Radio who isn't working that day because, well, that will be explained later in the movie. Gabriele catches the bird and invites Antonietta over to pick up the bird.

The two talk, and one thing leads to another, with Antonietta eventually bringing Gabriele back to her place for conversation to bring something into her lonely life, and perhaps a bit more. The two spend most of the rest of the day together, revealing some secrets about themselves.

Surprisingly, that's mostly what happens in the movie, although Gabriele's secrets drive the plot. He's got friends who have political views and lifestyles that have gotten them in trouble with the Fascist regime, and Gabriele is the same, so certainly trouble for him can't be far behind; indeed, he already lost that job at the radio station. And Antonietta seems to be committed to Fascism, or at least politically naïve enough to keep a scrapbook of the virile Mussolini.

So instead, A Special Day is a character study of these two very lonely people, one who has no life outside her family and the other a subversive. The two have the lion's share of the dialogue, with Antonietta's family showing up in the first and last scenes, and the apartment complex concierge coming in from time to time to snoop on the ad hoc couple that's not really a couple.

Unsurprisingly, the character study works because of the strong acting from the two leads; would you really expect any less from either Loren or Mastroianni? From the moment we see Gabriele we can tell that he's keeping something deeply secret, while with Antonietta it's so obvious that she's lonely and looking for any escape from her humdrum life.

In the print TCM ran (which I'd guess is the Criterion print, although I don't have the DVD), there was a card at the beginning mentioning this is a restoration, and specifically mentioning the color timing. Indeed, the production design and the color is itself almost as much of a character as the two leads. Antonietta's apartment is suitably cramped, drab, and run-down, helped by a washed-out color scheme that is mostly browns, with some dull green and a few reds in the Italian and German flags. As noticeable as this is, it's also quickly unobtrusive.

For anybody who doesn't need their movies to be full of action, explosions, and special effects, I can definitely recommend A Special Day.