Film Details

Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Lancaster, and Claudia Cardinale star in this lavish, sensationalist WWII drama from the director of The Night Porter (see 5/16). Never before released in America and based on a controversial memoir by oft-imprisoned Italian writer and war correspondent Curzio Malaparte, the film details the American “liberation” of Naples in 1943, emphasizing that freedom came with a heavy price, especially for women who continued to be sexually degraded and exploited by a new set of occupiers. The film pits the innocence of the Americans against the more jaded outlook of beleaguered Italians struggling to survive. Co-written by Catherine Breillat. “Caustic in dramatizing the dance of the victors and vanquished…Evokes a circle of hell.” –J. Hoberman, The NY Times.