A Tale of Two Brothers and a Prostitute: Rocco and His Brothers

Two words: Alain Delon. The very definition of sexuality, Delon is sure to tickle your fancy if not make you swoon completely. Underneath his rugged yet classically handsome visage, exists a dynamic actor who brings emotion and complexity to every character. Such complexity can be seen in his role as the gentle and emotional Rocco in Luchino Visconti’s definitive Neorealist work, Rocco and His Brothers.

First released in 1960, Rocco and his Brothers is a dramatic and provocative film that constructs and deconstructs Italian society in a post-fascist era. Set against the sweeping and powerful music of Nino Rota, director Luchino Visconti depicts Italy’s transformation through the family dynamic, specifically through the relationship between two brothers Rocco and Simone. Presented in five distinct chapters, the film reflects the internal divisions that plagued Italy during the sixties, between north and south, between classes, and within the family itself. Visconti examines how each member of the Parondi family is affected by their translocation from southern Italy to the large city of Milan. Indifferent and cold, the urban landscape proves unsympathetic, so much so that a prostitute becomes the only vessel of solace.

The pivotal scene depicts the rape of Nadia, the prostitute who captured the desire of both brothers Rocco and Simone. Simone having had Nadia first feels a claim to her and thus rapes her in front of Rocco. Rocco, who had genuine romantic feelings, becomes transformed at the site of such a display of utter brutality. What strikes me about this scene is how each brother undergoes a transformative process. Nadia is central to this transformation causing Simone to descend into complete bestiality, reduced to animalistic passions and having hardly retained his human essence, while cruelly converting Rocco’s idealism both about love and country into cold pragmatism having “seen” the reality of human desire.

Nadia becomes a metaphor for Italy itself, first looked upon with idealistic eyes but subsequently stirring disillusion in its admirers. Sexually defiled and stripped of its identity, Italy is portrayed as a place of ambiguity, uncertainty, and hopelessness, capable of reducing man to his most basic instincts and revealing his innate and inevitable bestiality. The image of Italy as a prostitute is nothing new, in fact Dante compares Italy to a whore in the sixth canto of Purgatorio “not a ruler of provinces, but a whore!” However, Visconti makes Italy so sordid it adds something new and other, forcing his audience to revaluate the supposed positive aspects of urbanism and modernity. This film is certainly worth watching, if not for its psychological realism and beautiful cinematography, then for Alain Delon who can easily be watched for two hours or more.

Rocco and his Brothers will be shown at the Pacific Film Archive Wednesday, December 10 at 7:00pm.

Zoe Langer