Wilder Sommer (1959)

Wilder Sommer: Directed by Valerio Zurlini. With Eleonora Rossi Drago, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Lilla Brignone, Raf Mattioli. Summer, 1943: wealthy youth in the Riccione district of Rimini play while the war gets closer. Carlo Caremoli, a young man who follows the crowd, has found ways to avoid military service. Then, on the beach, he meets Roberta, a war widow with a child. Roberta’s mother warns Roberta to avoid Carlo, but to her, he seems attentive and to her daughter he is kind. Romance develops. Within a few weeks, Roberta is risking everything. Can there be a resolution between passion, on the one hand, and war, duty, and social expectation on the other?

“After being quite impressed by the near-masterpiece comedy Zurlini made in 1954 u0026quot;The Girls of San Frediano,u0026quot; I was very much disappointed by u0026quot;Violent Summer,u0026quot; an overly melodramatic soap-opera made 5 years later. Too bad Zurlini couldnu0026#39;t restrain himself from the melodramatic overstatements that ruin the film because the cinematography couldnu0026#39;t be better and the young Trintignantu0026#39;s performance is pretty amazing.”