MovieChat Forums > The White Countess (2006) Discussion > Pitiful, pathetic scene of Sofia's acqua...

Pitiful, pathetic scene of Sofia's acquaintance, Maria


In a thought-provoking, pitiful scene, Sofia is riding home on the public tram at night when she spots her former taxi dance hall colleague, now reduced to trolling for johns on the busy, crowded city street. When the woman, Maria, glances towards the tram, countess Sofia quickly looks away to conceal her face so that Maria does not see her. Sofia had earlier predicted in the movie that Maria would end up this way as she was letting herself go and becoming irresponsible. It was kind of sad to watch. Maria did not look like a worn-out streetwalker, in fact Maria still looked pretty enough to have been a higher class prostitute. But the whole scene was set up to show the final degradation of one of the movies' very minor characters whose purpose I deduced, was to keep Sofia focused and on the straight and narrow and not cross any line from taxi dancer into prostitution, which would have been an irrevocable step as Maria took. It was even sadder to see that Sofia felt the need to conceal her face from Maria and I understood her reason to sever any ties with the former taxi dancer now turned desperate streetwalker hailing down prospective johns as if she were some aggressive street merchant hawker.

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