Sorry, this movie sucks

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

I had never seen any movies by Italian director Luchino Visconti and boy... was I disappointed. Beyond some nice black and white photography and adequate camera work, I didn't see much else that even remotely justifies all the fuss. I hear Visconti was a great theatre director, but directing movies is a different matter. I had to check the IMDb.com site to verify the date this movie was made. Such overacting on the part of practically all the cast made me think of silent movies that were shot back in the twenties when the actors had to compensate for the absence of sound. I watched this movie with my wife and after two rather depressing hours we both broke into a fit of giggles, when right near the end, 'la mamma' opens her apartment's door and there is this close-up on Simone's face. I'm OK with stereotypes, but laying it on this thick is just ridiculous. I find it hard to believe anyone would come up with a film like this in... 1960, the same year Michelangelo Antonioni was filming l'Avventura -- not to mention all the dazzling inventions of the French Nouvelle Vague. The only thing that I truly enjoyed about 'Rocco' was Annie Girardot's performance. I had seen her in a couple of mediocre commercial French movies such as 'Elle fume pas..' and I felt she was a natural, one of these rare actors that command respect the minute they appear, but I certainly never imagined that given the chance, she could have been one of the greatest celluloid tragedians of all times. You may think that I am a little harsh with my four stars out of a possible ten, but if not for Annie Girardot's performance, I would have gone much lower.

A poor Italian woman moves with her sons from the country to Milan. Although a segment is devoted to each of the five brothers, the focus is on Delon (the saint) and Salvatori (the brute). Delon is so sensitive that he gets teary-eyed if the wind blows too hard. There's a ridiculous scene where the two fight over a prostitute. The film covers several years, and it seems initially that Visconti is going to present every mundane event in excruciating detail. It's a chore to sit through three hours of random episodes, dull boxing scenes, and embarrassing melodramatics. Pretty much everyone overacts. At least the cinematography is decent and Rota contributes a nice score.

'Rocco and his Brothers' begins as the Parondi clan move from their rustic life in Lucania, in the southern part of Italy, to the bustling northern metropolis of Milan. Head of the clan is the mother, Rosaria, a loud, obnoxious woman who can be best described as a worry wart. She brings her four sons, Rocco and Simone (in their early 20s), Ciro, a teenager, and Luca (about eight), to visit Vincenzo, the older brother who is engaged to Ginetta (played by Claudia Cardinale before she became famous). The expectation is that Vincenzo has arranged for his in-laws to put his mother and siblings up until they can obtain permanent lodging. Unfortunately, Rosaria and Ginetta's mother don't get along and Vincenzo is forced to find other quarters for them. Vincenzo consults a maintenance man who advises him that the family can move into an expensive apartment, stop paying the rent after a month and have the City of Milan then put them into decent housing since anyone who has officially been evicted, must be provided with social services by the City.'Rocco' is divided into five segments, focusing on each of the brothers. The first segment involves Vincenzo whose character appears in stark contrast to his younger siblings. Whereas the newly arrived Parondis are very unsophisticated (they've never seen snow before) and regarded as country bumpkins by the residents of Milan, Vincenzo is a virtual cosmopolitan. While he has a small part in the film, Vincenzo serves two important purposes: 1) He is held up as less stable than the the younger and more together domestic pillar, Ciro, in that he is never able to facilitate a reconciliation between his mother and in-laws and ends up marrying Ginetta, more out of obligation than complete love, after she accidentally becomes pregnant; and 2) He ends up bumping into Nadia, the prostitute, in the hallway of the family's apartment building, introducing her to his other brothers.The next segment focuses on Simone who is the film's evil antagonist. All good melodramas need a good villain and Simone fits the bill to a tee. He dates Nadia for only a short time before she becomes sick of him; despite dumping him, in Simone's mind, Nadia has become his possession. Despite his professed love for Nadia, Simone has no guilt feelings about seducing the cleaning store manager where Rocco works. This is after he borrows (without permission) an expensive shirt from the cleaners to go on his date with Nadia. What's more he steals a broach from the store manager and gives it to Nadia as a gift; only to have it returned by Nadia to Rocco with a message to Simone that she doesn't want to see him ever again. For a short time, Simone has some success as a local boxer but soon falls from grace.The next segment focuses on Rocco who can best be described as an 'enabler'. At the end of the film, Ciro describes Rocco as a 'saint' but criticizes him for forgiving everyone for their transgressions. Rocco's character is the linchpin of the film and he's not a convincing character at all. At first, he wants nothing to do with boxing as he regards it as sleazy. Rocco eventually wants to return to the South where his kind-hearted nature might flourish. After joining the Army, he runs into Nadia and they develop a hot and heavy relationship. This leads to the most dramatic moment in the film, when Simone rapes Nadia in front of Rocco out of jealousy and Rocco in turn orders Nadia to 'go back' to Simone out of some kind of misguided filial obligation. If you believe anyone would have been so attached to his brother after spending so much time trying to show a downtrodden prostitute a new life (and actually ending up transforming her), then perhaps I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. I know it's supposed to be an example of a 'family tragedy', but I just don't believe anyone would have done such a thing, especially after he's a direct witness to his girlfriend being raped. Equally unbelievable is the subsequent scene where Nadia is about to spit in Simone's face and tells him she'll never go back to him—and then ends up kissing him and agrees to be his concubine.The next to last segment focuses on Ciro who is held up as the only well-adjusted brother in the clan. He is in effect, Rocco's better half. After Simone steals thousands of dollars from his former manager, Rocco (now a successful boxer himself), has his manager guarantee money to pay Simone's debts in exchange for a contract which will obligate him to fight for another 10 years. After Simone kills Nadia, Rocco keeps playing the part of the enabler by insisting that everyone in the family keep quiet. But Ciro wisely informs the police who pick Simone up for Nadia's murder. Ciro serves to restore order to the out of kilter Parondi clan. It's Ciro who also wisely tells Luca in the concluding final segment, that even returning to the south, the supposed fount of innocence, is not a panacea to life's problems since things are constantly changing and no one can predict the outcome of what life has in store for us.'Rocco and his Brothers' is very well-acted coupled with excellent cinematography. It should have all the ingredients of a masterpiece but doesn't. That's because its main character is not believable. Sure there are plenty of people like Rocco who would bail their brothers out financially even with the knowledge they had done something wrong; but to order their true love back into a destructive relationship with their brother after he just raped her, that's something I couldn't believe.One sad addendum: Annie Giardot (Nadia) who was married to Renato Salvatori (Simone) in real life, is still alive but has Alzheimers and has no memory of her former life.

Having seen Death In Venice before this, I'm taken by surprise when I see two pieces by a director who, with one, disconnected me with his coerced subtlety and understatement, and with this one, ultimately lost me by exploding the melodrama to heights of overacting I have rarely seen. There are so many more films by Luchino Visconti that I want to see that I am bound to be impressed by some of them, but they will likely be the ones that find equilibrium, whether in overstatement or understatement, or neither. Neither of the aforementioned films, no matter how seethingly sensual they may be, have egged me on.There is something to be said about Visconti's emotional instinct. For example, opening credits take a particularly long time, which complies with this film's elaborate concept of time. I would venture to say that time generally does slow down when watching Italian films, and that can be a really good thing. Usually. Here, it instead feels like it is magnifying everything, and the film, which could have been pared down to a neo-realist drama, becomes more and more like a soap opera. At first, I was thinking it would've been a great color film. After awhile, I was glad it wasn't. It was the only thing about it that didn't feel romantically embellished.Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori and Annie Girardot comprise a very strong cast in this melodrama about the gap between family and society. Actually, in Italy, it's not melodrama. It's reality. They call it realism. We call it overacting. I am aware that this film is a Venice Grand Special Jury Prize winner, and overall a highly appreciated classic of Italian cinema, but there are simply too many contagious weeping scenes, nuggets of wisdom in the form of metaphors too eloquently put for supposedly unplanned conversations by struggling lower- class people, and by the last hour, it all seems to be arbitrary for the sake of producing tragedy.The film is a depiction of class difference between Northern and Southern Italians. It includes an awesome boxing match between one of the eponymous brothers and another character. And there are other powerful moments such as when we see a field full of people standing in shame, a moment which propels a sudden change in tone an hour and a half in and feels like an epic turn. Delon as the sweet and loyal Rocco is emotively spongy and emphatic, but it is Salvatori who fills the screen with the grief of an agonized and wounded character. His performance is real and agitated, and Girardot is arresting as the pathetic prostitute. Nevertheless, there is a tilted fusion of dense emotionalism and realism to such a degree that the lines separating each become foggy and slight. However, such resulted in one very interesting line: "I would like to long for a car."