Italy, France, 1957
Directed by Federico Fellini
With Giulietta Masina (Maria “Cabiria” Ceccarelli), Franca Marzi (Wanda), Amedeo Nazzari (Alberto Lazzari), Leo Catozzo (the generous man with a sack), Aldo Salvini (the wizard), François Périer (Oscar D’Onofrio)
This is the chronicle of a few nights and many days in the life of a young streetwalker in Rome, built around the social interactions involving the titular character, Maria Ceccarelli, also known as Cabiria, and various persons and groups. A loose, noisy group of fellow prostitutes with a few male friends (or pimps?) is the main main group she hobnobs with and their gatherings by night, with their small talks, banter, tiffs, and the occasional tough encounter with the police stand as a leitmotif. Even more important, and more emotional, to Cabiria than her meetings with that big, colorful group is her bond with Wanda, her neighbor in an abandoned field on the edge of the Italian capital, also a prostitute, who likes to help and advise Cabiria.
However, the most decisive events unsurprisingly revolve around lonely men. It turns out they are bitterly disappointing from the start: she appears cavorting in a field with a young man who seems to be a lover, and a fondly loved one, both getting fun at playfully chasing after each other till the man pushes her in the nearby river and runs away with her handbag full of money. So the heroine when the audience first meet her is savagely stolen and nearly misses to die, and her first lines are heard only after villagers managed to resuscitate her from her shocking spell underwater.
Doom and gloom: the opening sequence sets the tone. It becomes clear in the following scenes that, despite having her own house, she is not really that successful at her trade; the fact is that the film barely shows her going away with a customer (it does happen once, late in the meandering narrative, when she is rudely invited to climb on a truck).
The second time she is facing a man is a dream-like development: she is picked up by an aging and angry playboy after his own girl walked on him on the street and in public. He is famous actor Alberto Lazzari and Cabiria follows him with an explosive but hilarious mix of grumpy reluctance and childish bewilderment. But the partying does lead to a wonderfully romantic night: Lazzari’s girlfriend rings at the door of his house and they reconcile and Cabiria must spend the rest of the night locked down in the bathroom.
The narrative does offer hope at one point: after taking part to the show of a magician she is courted by one young man who was attending. Understandably enough Cabiria is suspicious and does not believe she has luck this time. But Oscar D’Onofrio keeps talking to her and seducing her; weeks go by and she finally accepts to marry him. But in a finale increasingly bringing to mind the film’s beginning and eventually reaching a thoroughly creepy and dreadful climax, it turns out she was going to be bitterly deceived again.
But Cabiria’s wider experience does not only involve her intercourse with men and what looks like a hard to escape let-down. She takes part in a Catholic procession, tailing her friends and more particularly a middle-aged man who can walk only with crutches; this is a rather long sequence, vividly capturing the zeal of the believers hoping the devotional rites and the priest would bring a solution to their problems and get their prayers answered – but Cabiria reckons it cannot be the case and this is certainly what the paralyzed fellow gets, quite the opposite.
Later she is faced again with human benevolence and hope as she meets, at the end of the night when she was taken away by the truck driver, a man with a sack cautiously and carefully touring the eerie landscape they stand in, a large barren field punctured by holes leading to small caves with wide open openings, subterranean shelters where the poorest of the poor survive, in part thanks to the gifts of this generous man. Cabiria is sincerely puzzled by the world she discovers and surprised to meet among these outcast a former, and famously successful, streetwalker. The generous man with a sack drives Cabiria back to Rome, near a bus station, offering with a kind smile his help whenever need be. This feels like her only brush with a man that does not hold false promise and suggest all men are not disappointing. But it remains to be seen if she can seize the opportunity one day – the hectic rest of the narrative, shaped by her unexpected suitor, could mean she has forgotten the incident; this tour among the downtrodden of the expanding Italian economy is also a sobering reminder her career is strongly linked to poverty.
The incident also emphasizes this Federico Fellini film is anchored in the neorealist movement. The story is a case study of the concern for social problems and the fate of the unlucky poor that the Italian directors since the very end of World War Two have showed as their cameras roved diligently around folks in the streets and open air places, eager to shoot spontaneous, unrehearsed behaviors and to reflect life as precisely as they could. The scenes here where attention is paid to religion and entertainment are a modest riff on a theme that Fellini has already explored and would take even greater place in his body of work, the essential presence of popular entertainment and wonderful diversions, from the carnival of “I Vitelloni” (1953) to the circus of “La strada” (1954); it also expresses a concern for mysterious, surreal events and feelings, the possibility of magic invading life, tinkering with it, upsetting the experience of the characters and audience – but he does not go far down that avenue for the moment.
Fellini’s partner, Giuletta Masina, stars again in his work. She is not the innocent, childish heroine of “La strada” and she is not accompanied by any Anthony Quinn. She is the true center of the film and her range of expressions and attitudes is stunning but above all nicely suit the film’s real topic: how an instinctive and mercurial young character can react and survive in a ruthless world shaped by male selfishness and desire.
The meanderings of Cabiria actually fit her own mood and confused quest for a better life. She yearns for happiness, and the opening scene shows her clamoring joy and confidence as she thinks love is ruling her life. Anger inevitably follows – but this is not a character who would brood for long but rather gets over the latest mishaps. She may be deemed crazy by people around her but her expansive and extravagant streaks are what make her a precious, delicate presence on-screen. She is lively and hopeful and intends to stay so as long as possible. Religion is probably not her cup of tea yet she still accepts to give it a try, so fierce is her desire to have a better life and so strong her intimation she really could. Shooting Cabiria is shooting a real energy, which might be easily misdirected and is really hard to curb and to handle (in her scenes, Wanda can rightly be appalled by Cabiria’s antics) but which keeps burning even as men waste it.
The final shot is the most heartbreaking and optimistic illustration of Cabiria’s complex life. She has been once again cheated, in a most scandalous and despicable way. Still in shock she stumbles across a park crying. But then young people pop up on her way, having fun and playing music. The slow change Cabiria’s face undergoes, the closeups scrutinizing her emotions, the way her eyes directly look into the camera, all these elements bring the sequence to a fresh, highly emotional, direction. The smile, and what a smile, that finally appears is a magnificent symbol of hope, however ambiguous it is given the sorrowful context. Even when faced with the worst despondency, to carry on is still possible; Cabiria can still exist; all is not lost.