I thought it was strange. I don't see the fact that it was made in the 50's to be an excuse for all the people around Irene to believe that she was unfit for society. Throughout the ages there have been people whose priority in life is to help others, and normally they are admired. These people acted as if she'd committed some horrible crime, and the only reason she "got to" go to an asylum instead of prison was that her family had position and power of some kind, though it seems to me it was just money. But that may have been one of the points of the film - merely by having money they are considered elevated in society. No matter how they came by that money, if people even know. That's true today as much as then.
What crime did she commit in the first place? I didn't hear anything close to it (though I admit I missed a short span in the middle of the film.) All the priest says is that she's left her family to go live with "lower" people (I don't remember how he phrased that, but there's always a way) and that she was "infatuated" with a man, which she denied. Since when is it a crime to leave your husband because you don't your life satisfying? Even her "crime" of telling the young man to run turned out to be untrue - she had told him to turn himself in to the police, and he did. She even understood the motive behind his crime better than anyone else - that he was in such an emotional state of despair that he lost control of himself. Even in the 1950's there was enough psychological theory around to support that idea of hers.
So, I find it a little far-fetched that there weren't people to rally behind her besides the poor people she had helped, whose existence was treated as if they were not "real" people by her family, the doctors, the judge, etc. Did you notice the way they were ignored?
Why were there no intellectuals who heard of her plight? No newspaper writers to tell her story? Surely, if that were part of the story it would have been filmed that way.
What real evidence did the judge see that she was unbalanced? He insisted on seeing her, not just reading others' reports, yet he goes along with it all even though she did nothing "crazy" in his presence. She even denied thinking that she was a saint of some kind, even when it was suggested to her by the doctor, who showed no sympathy or understanding.
Leonard Maltin called the story "obvious." I'm not at all stupid, and this story perplexed me.
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Bitterblogger
10 years ago
Her realization that she had led a relatively empty life was brought home by her failure to nurture her son in the manner he required. In her struggle to continue on after his death, for which she feels guilt, she by happenstance becomes involved in aiding the poverty-stricken. Since the vicissitudes of post-war Italian social services are unable to meet the needs of much of the deprived, she continues as it gives her life meaning. Her husband is uneasy that she is liable to become a political agitator and undermine his position with the government, and impatient that she has little time for him when he is grieving himself for his lost son.
When, out of desperation, a young man attempts to rob his own parents at a household she is aiding, she realizes his agitation and for his own sake advises that he flee the police only such time as he can gather himself to turn himself in. The authorities, having become aware of her involvement, charge her with aiding and abetting a fugitive. In order to avoid a political scandal, and to assuage her husband's suspicion that she may have fallen in love with the criminal, he is persuaded to have her committed to a mental institution believing that she will recognize her plight after getting the rest she needed in the immediate aftermath of her son's death and become her old self again. That is an attitude and desire shared by the rest of her family, the psychologist, the court, and the priesthood.
When instead she sees that she is to be "rehabilitated" only in order to be forced to adopt her previous role which is now meaningless to her, she refuses to sacrifice her commitment for the sake of expediency and accepts her permanent institutionalization.
In short, her personal redemption is more important to her than her personal freedom.
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middsgo-956-41818
10 years ago
Thank you. That's a very nice way of saying what I saw. It just seemed to me that all those professionals - doctor, husband, judge, priest - were overreacting to the point of absurdity, if indeed they spoke truthfully. The idea that every one except the poor would see it the same way - that she's lost it and is better off in an asylum - seems unlikely.
I don't think the husband truly suspected her of a betrayal with another man. I think he was acting out because she was focused on something besides his interests. Maybe it was just another thread to use to get her put away, and in those days it was a lot easier to have a spouse committed. But I still don't think all the "professionals" who assessed her situation would have concurred with her husband so fully - even the priest??? Her husband wasn't *that* important a personage.
If this series of events were a realistic possibility, then post-war Italy was more morally corrupt and shallow than I ever suspected.
It would have been more believable to me if, say, the husband was having an affair and wanted to be rid of her so he wouldn't lose any money when he dumped her, and if a couple of the professionals would have expressed doubts that there was anything wrong with her, but showed fear of not going along with the plan.
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