After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.
Similar titles
You May Also Like
Reviews
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Let's be realistic.
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
The echoes of Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria" and "La Dolce Vita" are obvious and Pasolini was a screenwriter on both of those projects. That said, this stands on its own as a deeply felt look at one part of Italian society, circa 1962. Watching it, I understood a mother's love for her son and the roots of present-day Italian society better than I had done. That's not a bad achievement! It's also a tremendously attractive time capsule, a window into that moment in time and place. As an aside, I wonder how this film would have been perceived had Pasolini not made "Salo". I think it might have been taken rather more seriously. Watch and make up your own minds.
As my first Pasolini film, Mamma Roma is as good an introduction as I could have wished. The plot is terrific and heartbreaking, and the depth and range that Mamma Roma's character calls for is delivered in full by Magnani. One must only consider the two separate occasions we see Mamma walk the line after dark. What a force! Her figure attracts so many men, almost like a light in an otherwise dark night would attract insects. But none of these men can keep up with her--the past she recounts, although lightheartedly, is too troublesome a road for anyone to walk down. Indeed, she herself never finds an escape from it.And this is the genius of Pasolini's film. That we have the two figures of Ettore and Mamma Roma, who each emerge in the film at the hour of their seeming liberation-- Mamma freed from her pimp and Ettore from his "hicks" in the country--who nonetheless crumble under the weight of history. All they are left to do is wonder, to paraphrase Ettore during the end, "why so many people are torturing (them)," when all they (Mamma Roma and Ettore) want to do is good. Existential despair that resonates today amidst grave financial uncertainty and uncertain class ascendancy.
In Rome, middle-aged Anna Magnani (as Mamma Roma) tries to shed her past life as a prostitute and reconnect with rebellious teenage son Ettore Garofolo (as Ettore). He moves in as she gets a legitimate job. Things already show signs of falling apart when young ex-pimp Franco Citti (as Carmine) returns to town. After failing to make himself respectable, Mr. Citti demands Ms. Magnani return to the working the world's oldest profession. If not, he threatens tell son Garofolo about Magnani's sordid past...This neo-realistic drama loses some realism in the story. You have to wonder how Citti ("I was 23 and you were 40") hooked up with Magnani and why he doesn't look for more profitable whores, presently. Also, Garofolo (age 17½) certainly seems able to deduce his mother's past. Still, writer/director Pier Paolo Pasolini uses his landscape stylishly, with a lot of walking scenes. Christian religious allegory is prevalent (note Garofolo in bondage). A fly walks across the opening credits, which serves as a comment.******** Mamma Roma (8/31/62) Pier Paolo Pasolini ~ Anna Magnani, Ettore Garofolo, Franco Citti, Silvana Corsini
"Mamma Roma"(1962) the second film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, is the brutally realistic in its depiction of life in the slums of Rome yet lyrical ode to mother's love. Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani), a middle-aged prostitute is ready to quit her profession and to start a new life with her teenage son who had spent his childhood in the country and does not know her well. She wants a better life for herself and a meaningful future for her son, and there is not much her Mamma Roma would not do for her son. Things don't go as planned, though...Anna Magnani was renowned for her earthy, passionate, "woman-of-the-soil" roles and she is one of the main reasons to see the film. She is Rome's flesh and soul, its spirit and symbol, its loud laugh and bitter tears.