Popular reviews

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  Review by Evelyn, Library P.I.

  A very important film to Italian film history, but unfortunately lost. Alessandro Blasetti’s directorial debut told a pro-Fascist story of local inhabitants resisting but eventually accepting the ongoing state-led draining and reappropriation of the Pontine Marshes. It was shot realistically, largely on location, apparently mixing German and Soviet film influences with Italian specificity. It was received as an artistic triumph and a rebirth of Italian cinema. Indeed, Mussolini allegedly called it “the dawn of the Fascist film,” or words to that effect. Its success won Blasetti a contract with Stefano Pittaluga of Cines studios, and, in short order, Blasetti was the leading director of Italian Fascist cinema.

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  Review by Danny

  what remains of it is fascinating—a bizarrely impressionistic style superimposed upon settings that anticipate neorealism—and what's been salvaged of the latter two thirds seems just as compelling. wholly unique dramatically and even politically among its contemporaries in the fascist film market