Review of Senso (1954) by Kevin N — 16 Mar 2011

3: Wow, Visconti certainly knew how to make lush and romantic films concentrating on 19th Century Italy. This and The Leopard make a pretty potent one-two punch on Blu-Ray. Few films are more beautifully conceived.

Everything on screen seems rich, vibrant, and expensive. Few stories are more tragic as well, to include Romeo & Juliet, although it is much more romantic. Visconti certainly seems to have had a preoccupation with the Austrian occupation of his country and with political and societal upheaval, or at least he knew how to effectively and magnificently depict it on screen.

Senso is far less effective, epic, and sweeping than The Leopard, but it is still quite powerful in its own right. It's very possible I'm underrating it, but I was not bowled over by it. Farley Granger is superb.

The ornate, gilded, and opulent sets and costumes simply saturate the screen. It's one of those pictures that truly deserve to be call end operatic (Moonstruck does not for instance) and not just because of the use of opera.

The opening scene in the opera house was probably my favorite though. Senso is a very apt title. I kind of wish this could be combined with "In the Realm of the Senses"; that would be an interesting picture.

I just realized that Visconti and Sirk were making very similar brilliant Technicolor melodramas around the same time an ocean apart. Sirk focused on 1950's or so White Suburban America though, whereas Visconti was solidly entrenched along with mid-19th century Italian nobility.

I prefer Sirk.