Whenever I see La Paura I think of it as a companion piece to Eyes Wide Shut, or maybe it is the other way around. Adultery makes both films tick but in different ways. I think Phillip French was right on the money when he pointed out a Wizard of Oz thing in Kubrick's last work. Like Dorothy, Tom and Nicole go through fantasies and nightmares and at the end Dorothy's reassuring childish motto "there's no place like home" is ironically updated to the adult circumstantial adage "there's no sex like marital sex". Kubrick's take is intellectual, he never leaves the world of ideas to touch the ground. He taunts the audience first with an erotic movie and then with a thriller and refuses to deliver either of them. He was married to his third wife for 40 years, until he died. Rossellini was still married to Ingrid Bergman when he directed La Paura; they had been adulterous lovers and their infidelity widely criticized La Paura is a tale, a noirish one. The noir intrigue is solved and the tale has a happy ending. The city is noir; the country is tale, the territory where childhood is possible. The transition is operated in the most regular way: by car, a l
ong-held shot
taken from the
front of the
car as it rid
es into the
road, as i
f we we
re entering a d
ifferent di
mension.
Irene (Bergma
n) starts the m
ovie: we just
see a dark
city landsca
pe but her voi
ce-over na
rration tel
ls us of her an
gst and inform
s us that
the story
is a flashback
, hers.
Bergman&
amp;#39;
s been cheati
ng on her h
usband. At
first
guilt is just
psychologi
cal tor
ture but
soon e
xpands
into economic
blackmail
and then
grows into so
mething e
lse. Fr
om beginning
to end the mov
ie focuses on
what Bergman
feels, every o
ther charact
er is there
to make h
er feel som
ething. Onl
y when
the dir
ector gives awa
y the plot
before t
he main charact
er can fin
d out doe
s he want us
to feel someth
ing Bergm
an still ca
n&#
39;t. W
hen she finds o
ut, we have a
lready ex
perienced
the war
ped mechanics o
f the situation
and we
may focu
s once aga
in on the
emotional impac
t it has on B
ergman&a
mp;#39;s
Irene. In La
Paura treasons
are not
imagine
d but real, ni
ghtmare
s are deli
berate a
nd the coupl
e's ven
om suppur
ates in bitte
r ways. Nee
dless to sa
y, Ingrid ha
s another
of her ro
ugh rid
es in the
movies but R
ossellini doe
sn'
t dare put her
away as
he did in
Europa 51
, nor does he
abandon h
er to the i
nscruta
ble imp
assivity of
nature (Stro
mboli). His
gift is
less transcende
nt and fragile
than th
e concl
usion of
Viaggio in Ita
lia. He ju
st gives
his wi
fe as much of a
fairy t
ale ending as
a real woman
can ha
ve, a
human lands
cape where
she can finall
y feel at h
ome. Back to
the count
ry, a
half lit inte
rior scene w
here shadows s
uggest the
comfort of slee
p. After all,
it's
the "
fairy godmo
ther&quot
; who s
peaks t
he last words i
n the movie.　　
Whenever I see
La Paura I t
hink of
it as a compan
ion piece
to Eyes Wid
e Shut, or
maybe i
t is th
e o