A fabulous opening: the camera tracks a courting couple at polite distance, they reach the river... then he grabs her bag and pushes her in. Swept away by the current, she is drowning... but some ragazzi spot her and save her. A crowd gathers and she is revived... But she just wakes up mad at the guy who pushed her in.
This fiery, independent, vivacious character is given life by Giulietta Masina, who won Best Actress at Cannes, but amazingly not the David di Donatello award - che stronzi! They gave it to Ingrid Bergman for Anastasia instead! (Fellini at least won Best Director and it was Best Foreign Film Oscar.)
In typically episodic fashion, streetwalker Cabiria shouts and fights, is picked up by a film star, goes to a Holy Blessing, is hypnotised on stage and romanced by a bourgeois accountant. You just know it's going to end badly, and it does, with some circularity, but then Cabiria responds to the smiles and songs of passing people.
Nino Roti's score adds a lot.
With Francois Perier, Franca Marzi (also good as her friend). Written with Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Photographed by Aldo Tonti.
It's maybe my favourite Fellini, and kept making me think of Woody Allen and just how influential the Italian was.
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