Europe '51

Director: Roberto Rossellini

1952 / 109min / DCP

The second collaboration between Rossellini and admirer-turned-wife Ingrid Bergman features La Bergman as Irene Girard, the fashionable wife of an affluent American industrialist living in Rome whose life is upended when her young son, after complaining to her of feeling neglected, dies from an injury that may or may not have been self-inflicted. Crestfallen and guilt-ridden, Irene, heeding the advice of a politically engaged friend, attempts to find new meaning by flinging herself into altruism and self-denial—but as her imitation of Christ goes on further and longer than a respectable mourning period demands, friends and family begin to regard Irene as less saintly than insane.

Part of Ethics of Care