Catene (1949)
Directed by Raffaello Matarazzo

Film Review

Having started his filmmaking career with a series of popular comedies, Raffaello Matarazzo gravitated to melodramas at the end of the 1940s and had his first major hit with this quintessential Italian weepy.  Catene (a.k.a. Chains) was a phenomenal success, the third biggest hit of the year at the Italian box office and the film that established Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson as one of Italian cinema's most popular on-screen couples.  Unstarry, self-effacing and yet instantly likeable, Nazzari and Sanson epitomised the ordinary working class couple, coping as best they could with the disasters that life threw in their path.  They appeared together in many subsequent films, including five by Matarazzo, most notably Tormento (1950) and L'Angelo bianco (1955).

In common with virtually all Italian film melodrama, Catene tells the story from the woman's point of view, using her reaction at key moments to heighten the drama and deliver the most  pointed commentary on the harshness and injustice of modern life, as experienced by ordinary people.  The best example of this is the scene in which the loathsome ex-lover Emilio is attacked and murdered by Guglielmo.   Like Rosa, we are expelled from the little room in which the action takes place, and the horror of the situation is conveyed to us by the desperation that overtakes Rosa as her husband seals her fate (and his own) with a conveniently placed pistol.   Other scenes, notably the one in which Rosa goes off to see Emilio for the last time, are shown from the perspective of the child characters, Tonino and Angela, something that gives the film a palpable sense of anguish and loss as the family unit is gradually torn apart.

Rosa's over-emphasised moment of self-sacrifice is typical of Italian melodrama (as it is in its equally derided American cousin, the so-called women's picture), but rather than make her into a martyr (as Pasolini did with his later neo-realist melodrama Mamma Roma), the film concludes in a happier vein, with order restored and the rift healed.  By opting for such a soft ending and thereby rejecting neo-realism (then considered the true representation of Italian society), Matarazzo made himself an easy target for the critics, who would take a particular delight in ridiculing this and subsequent films.  It wasn't until the end of his career that Matarazzo began to win the critics round, by which time his earlier work was beginning to garner more favourable critical attention.  In common with many films of its ilk,Catene does play its emotional cards a little too deliberately in parts, but such is the authenticity of the performances and the sheer elegance of the mise-en-scène (to say nothing of the sumptuous location photography in Naples) that it can hardly fail to captivate and enchant any devotee of Italian cinema.

Film Synopsis

In Naples, Rosa leads a contented family life with her husband Guglielmo, the owner of a garage, and two young children.  One day, her world is thrown into a turmoil when her former fiancée Emilio appears from nowhere and reminds her of their idyllic romance before the war.   Rosa's love for Emilio has long since faded and, aware that he now leads the life of a criminal, she has no intention of abandoning her family for him.  When Emilio threatens to expose her earlier love affair to her husband, Rosa agrees to see him one last time, in the privacy of a hotel room.  Before Rosa can say her piece, Guglielmo appears and, consumed with jealousy, shoots Emilio dead with his own gun.  Before he flees to America, Guglielmo places his children in the care of his elderly mother, insisting that they should never see Rosa again.  When the authorities finally catch up with him, Guglielmo is brought back to Italy to await trial for murder.  Aware that it is the only way to prevent her husband from being sent to prison for thirty years, Rosa tells the court that she intended leaving him for Emilio.  As she utters the lie, she knows that she may lose her husband and children forever...