ALTERNATE SYNOPSIS:
From Luchino Visconti - the master director of such classics as La terra trema, Bel/issima, and The Leopard- comes this epic study of family, sex, and betrayal. Alongside Fellini's La dolce vita and Antoniotii's L'awentura, Viseonti's Kocce and His Brothers ushered Italian cinema into a new era, one unafraid to confront head-on the hypocrisies of the ruling class, the squalor in urban living, and the collision between generations.
A tight-knit family moves from Italy's rural south to metropolitan Milan, The shock of the new is violent and immediate, A mother meddles. A whore beguiles. Brother faces brother. Blood-ties come undone. We pity beatific Rocco (played by the immortal Alain Oelon in a role specially written for him) and Nadia the harlot (Annie Girardot, capricious and scintillating) - the modern condition has shattered their lives.
Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize and the Special Prize at Venice in 1960. |