Senso Review
Senso is a stunning film, featuring Luchino_Visconti at his most operatic. With Alida_Valli and Farley_Granger thrown in for marquee value, the film chronicles the last days of the Austrian-Italian conflict, in the spring of 1866. A performance of +Il Trovatore serves as the backdrop for a stormy romance between Livia Serpieri, trapped in a loveless marriage, and a young Austrian office-worker, Franz Mahler (Granger). Their affair is bound to end tragically, and it does, but not before Visconti and his scenarists (including additional dialogue from Tennessee_Williams and Paul_Bowles) have created a delirious world of color, music, deception, and betrayal in which revenge is always the strongest motivation for all human affairs. Senso simply demands to be seen on a cinema screen; reduced to the dimensions of even the most grandiose home theater system, the film loses much of its visual impact. Yet Visconti's vision is so over the top, so deliciously abandoned, that the trip is well worth taking, even on DVD. One of the most unrestrained of Visconti's many films, Senso is a lavish spectacle of the highest order. Wheeler Winston Dixon, Rovi
Great Film Moments:
- In Theaters
- This Week
- Coming Soon
- New on DVD
Browse More Movies:
