Roberto Rossellini, Italy, USA, 1949, Les Films Sans Frontières
Comment
Karen, played by Ingrid Bergman, has followed a man she barely knows to the island of Stromboli. Quickly disillusioned, lost in a harsh and hostile world, she feels trapped. Pregnant, she decides to cross the island to escape and have an abortion. At the beginning of the sequence, Karen makes her way across the volcano, Stromboli. Rosselini makes us share the suffering of his heroine who is caught off balance in a fight against nature: she struggles for breath and coughs while smoke and sulphur fill the screen. Both the character and the actress, in the grip of the elements, suffer in their ascent. Music of great dramatic intensity accompanies the shots that follow one another and stretch out time, mingling with the roaring wind and the protagonist's suffering. She seems to be on the verge of giving up several times, so much so that the ascent continues without ever revealing any horizon, like the narrow and aimless life she found when she stepped onto the island. The heroine's desperate face fills the screen when, finally reaching the top, she faces the raging crater, which erupts, throwing lava and rocks towards the immense sky, looking like an antechamber of hell. She then gives in and collapses, defeated, resolving to give up on her life. In the morning she wakes up and a miracle seems to happen: lying on the ground, she abandons herself to sensations that soothe her - the sun's rays warming her skin, the light replacing the darkness of the ash clouds. Then she has a revelation. She stands up, her hand on her belly sheltering the child she is carrying and seems to embrace her destiny, affirming her presence in the world in front of the mountain whose violent geology gives way to the possibility of refuge. Rosselini films the gentle slopes of the volcano, with white smoke that escapes at shallow angles, the motionless sky, while the music also calms down. Karen experiences a plethora of pure sensations, which literally transform her and reveal her to herself, as if all the disappointments and trials she has suffered, including the last, most dangerous and gruelling one, offered a resolution in front of this wild and living landscape. Her figure rises to the top of the screen, facing the world in which she finds her place and her own measure of herself. Karen's fate also echoes in a singularly symmetrical way that of the actress Ingrid Bergman, who had just met Rossellini, a married father, whose love affair became the talk of the town at a time of a particularly harsh shooting conditions on the wild slopes of Stromboli, the active volcano.
Comment
Karen, played by Ingrid Bergman, has followed a man she barely knows to the island of Stromboli. Quickly disillusioned, lost in a harsh and hostile world, she feels trapped. Pregnant, she decides to cross the island to escape and have an abortion. At the beginning of the sequence, Karen makes her way across the volcano, Stromboli. Rosselini makes us share the suffering of his heroine who is caught off balance in a fight against nature: she struggles for breath and coughs while smoke and sulphur fill the screen. Both the character and the actress, in the grip of the elements, suffer in their ascent. Music of great dramatic intensity accompanies the shots that follow one another and stretch out time, mingling with the roaring wind and the protagonist's suffering. She seems to be on the verge of giving up several times, so much so that the ascent continues without ever revealing any horizon, like the narrow and aimless life she found when she stepped onto the island. The heroine's desperate face fills the screen when, finally reaching the top, she faces the raging crater, which erupts, throwing lava and rocks towards the immense sky, looking like an antechamber of hell. She then gives in and collapses, defeated, resolving to give up on her life. In the morning she wakes up and a miracle seems to happen: lying on the ground, she abandons herself to sensations that soothe her - the sun's rays warming her skin, the light replacing the darkness of the ash clouds. Then she has a revelation. She stands up, her hand on her belly sheltering the child she is carrying and seems to embrace her destiny, affirming her presence in the world in front of the mountain whose violent geology gives way to the possibility of refuge. Rosselini films the gentle slopes of the volcano, with white smoke that escapes at shallow angles, the motionless sky, while the music also calms down. Karen experiences a plethora of pure sensations, which literally transform her and reveal her to herself, as if all the disappointments and trials she has suffered, including the last, most dangerous and gruelling one, offered a resolution in front of this wild and living landscape. Her figure rises to the top of the screen, facing the world in which she finds her place and her own measure of herself. Karen's fate also echoes in a singularly symmetrical way that of the actress Ingrid Bergman, who had just met Rossellini, a married father, whose love affair became the talk of the town at a time of a particularly harsh shooting conditions on the wild slopes of Stromboli, the active volcano.