A Special Day

The casting shines in this Oscar-winning 1977 foreign film from Italian director Ettore Scola (1931-2016), an engaging two-hander about an unlikely relationship that develops between two residents of a Roman apartment building on a day in May 1938 when most of the populace is out welcoming Italy's ally Adolf Hitler to the city. Antonietta (Sophia Loren, definitely playing against type) is a drab, overworked housewife who rouses her surly husband and children to dress up and attend the parade. After they depart, her pet bird escapes from its cage and flies across the courtyard to the window of a neighbor, Gabriele (Marcello Mastroianni, equally uncharacteristic as a gay man just fired from his job as a radio announcer). After Antonietta goes to Gabriele's place to retrieve her bird, the pair engage in a platonic dalliance. Their day spent together is not without problems—she's a committed fascist, while he opposes the repressive regime—but they joke and even dance, despite the scolding of a nasty old crone who puts the worst possible interpretation on what she's seeing. The contrast that Scola draws between the vulgar pomposity of the state visit (shown in newsreel footage) and the brief sensitive encounter between two unhappy people is rather heavy-handed, but the charisma of the stars generates much warmth, while the striking, sepia-colored visuals add to the atmosphere. Presented in a beautifully restored edition, extras include new interviews with Scola and Loren, archival 1977 interviews by Dick Cavett of Loren and Mastroianni, the 2014 short film Human Voice—based on Jean Cocteau's La voix humaine and starring Loren—and a booklet with an essay by film critic Deborah Young. Recommended. (F. Swietek)