Set during the second world war, the sentimental education of a sensual adolescent girl, growing out of her childhood in a small, impoverished village in Southern Italy.
Direction
Wertmüller's grotesque tableaux—Fellini's uglier, angrier cousin.
Costume
Miluzza's dresses: poverty transformed into erotic weaponry.
Acting
Cara's feral stillness—watching her watch men watching her.
Director
Lina Wertmüller
Stefania Sandrelli
Nunziata
Raoul Bova
Pietro
Lorenzo Crespi
Dino
Luisa Amatucci
Nannina
Giuditta Del Vecchio
Annuzza
Pepe Da Rosa
Don Peppe
Rino Marcelli
Nonno Rafele
Massimo Bellinzoni
Tunin
Ennio Coltorti
Gioacchino
Isa Danieli
Gesummina
Lola Pagnani
Lucia
Simona Patitucci
Rosanella / Margherita
Francesca Rettondini
Donna Pentita (uncredited)
Paolo De Giorgio
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Wertmüller was the first woman nominated for Best Director; this 1996 return to form was largely dismissed as obsolete excess.
The film adapts a novel by Nino Lattanzio, but Wertmüller intensifies the grotesque elements—her signature 'ugly beautiful' aesthetic making poverty operatic rather than naturalistic.
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