Amazon.com Essentials:
Considered by many to be Federico Fellini's most beautiful and
powerful film, La Strada was the first film to reveal the range
of Guilietta Masina, whose poignant performance as the childlike
Gelsomina recalls Chaplin's Little Tramp. The bubbly, waiflike
Gelsomina is a simpleton sold to the gruff, bullying circus strongman
Zampanò (Anthony Quinn) as a servant and assistant. Treated no
better than an animal, Gelsomina nonetheless falls in love with the
brute Zampanò. When they join a small circus they meet Il Matto
(Richard Basehart), a clown who enchants Gelsomina and relentlessly
taunts Zampanò, whose inability to control his hatred of Il
Matto (literally, "the Fool") leads to their expulsion from the circus
and eventually to the film's fateful conclusion. Masina is
heartbreaking as the wide-eyed innocent, whose generous spirit and
love of life leads her to try to "save" Quinn's unfeeling, brutal
Zampanò. Though the film resonates with mythic and biblical
dimensions, Fellini never loses sight of his characters, lovingly
painted in all their frailties and failings. Fellini's lyrical style
reaches back to the simple beauty of his neorealist films and looks
ahead to the impressionistic fantasies of later films, but at this
unique period in Fellini's career, they combine to create a poetic,
tragic masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker
