Review of Violent Summer

Warlike? Dramatic? Romantic? Why not? Perhaps it is necessary to include in Canto V of Dante's Inferno together with the reprobates Paolo and Francesca; I call this a romantic work, first of all because I have never seen Trintignant as expressive as in this gem of cinema at 29 years of age. The fire of love between Carlo and Roberta, fighting to consummate it against customs, the stupidity of war and the never absent and, but always, pernicious, double standards of all of Riccione, in Italy. The beautiful Rossana loves Carlo, but Carlo falls in love with the widow Roberta, at least ten years older than him and whom he meets when he caresses his 5-year-old daughter on the beach. When Maddalena, Renata's sister-in-law but of the age of Carlo's group, arrives in the city, the evenings under the starry sky and the dances with Artie Shaw become delicious because trying not to bore the guest, Renata is courted by Carlo with chivalry , no less than cute excitement. She, Mrs. Parmesan, does not initially give in to the young man, and how quickly it happens that her reluctance -the widow who risks scandal- together with her arguments to oppose reciprocating him, will be the same ones that Carlo wields against her, as the war accelerated and then, just as ardent as Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the widow lost control of herself in desires and love, even abandoning her daughter. Renata always feared that the youngster would get bored and end up hating her because of the age difference; but Carlo, in that indelible scene on the train when they were already escaping from Riccione in the wagon and the atrocious attack and bombardment surprises them on the trip, Carlo sees her leaving and assures her that she will hate him for abandoning her daughter late or early. Jewel of the cinema where they exist.