La cagna (Love to Eternity, 1972)

Director: Marco Ferreri
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli
Label:  Minerva (2005)
Format: DVD / PAL / Region 2
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audio: Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono)
Subtitles: English

Bonus:

* Interview with film critic Adriano Aprà (10 minutes, with English subtitles)
* Interview with director of photography Mario Vulpiani (5 minutes, with English subtitles)
* 12 page bilingual booklet

Available on Amazon.it

What's the film about?

Based on a novel by Ennio Flaiano, Melampus, loosely inspired on a character from Pinocchio. An artist has withdrawn to a desert island, where he lives alone with his dog. One day, a woman arrives and tries to replace the dog. Kind of continuation of Dilliger Is Dead, this surrealistic fable explores the sexual revolution's effects, but also "the false myth of the intellectual's return to nature" (Ferreri). The disc contains the Italian track only, because the French cut (entitled Liza) features some minor variants.

Recommendations
...if you wonder about the journey Michel Piccoli embarked on in Dillinger Is Dead.

Screenshots

Gelosia (Jealousy, 1953)

Director: Pietro Germi
Starring: Erno Crisa, Marisa Belli, Liliana Gerace, Paola Borboni
Label:  Ripley's Home Video (2004)
Format: DVD / PAL / Region 0
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 b/w
Audio: Italian (Dolby Digital 1.0 mono)
Subtitles: English, Italian

Available on Amazon.it

What's the film about?

The descent into madness of a Marquis who has killed his mistress' husband. Nowadays Pietro Germi is best known for his groundbreaking comedies (Divorce Italian Style, Seduced and Abandoned), but in the '40s and '50s he worked mainly in noirs and melodramas, achieving great box office success with highly stylized films like In nome della Legge and Il ferroviere. Gelosia is definitely a lesser work, but despite its flawed structure it still displays strong evidence of Germi's vigorous visual style.

Recommendations
...if you are curious about a straight face version of Divorce Italian Style.

Screenshots