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6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. La canzone dell'amore remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have any interest in seeing where Italian sound cinema actually started, you should probably watch this. It’s definitely not for people who need 4K visuals or a plot that moves faster than a turtle, but it has a weird, dusty charm. 🎞️
It’s based on a Pirandello story, but don't let that make you think it's going to be some big brain exercise. It’s basically a melodrama about a girl, a secret baby, and a boyfriend who is kind of a jerk.
Lucia is played by Dria Paola, and she has these absolutely massive eyes. Seriously, she looks like she stepped out of a silent movie and hasn't quite figured out that she's allowed to use her voice yet.
Her mom dies right at the start, which is a pretty heavy way to kick things off. Then she discovers she has a baby half-brother to take care of, and things get complicated fast.
Enter Enrico. He’s an aspiring songwriter and he’s very much in love with Lucia, but he’s also very vocal about not wanting kids yet. 🚩
So, naturally, Lucia does the most logical movie thing: she hides the baby in her apartment and pretends it isn't hers. It’s a classic setup that you’ve probably seen in stuff like New York Nights, which came out around the same time.
The sound quality is... well, it’s 1930. It sounds like everyone is talking through a tin can filled with gravel.
You can actually see the actors standing very still sometimes, probably because they were terrified of moving away from the hidden microphones. It gives the whole thing a very stiff, nervous energy that I actually kind of liked.
There’s a scene where they’re in a music shop, and the way the extras just stand there staring is hilarious. It feels like they forgot to tell them they were being filmed. 🙃
The music is the big selling point, obviously. The title song, "Solo per te, Lucia," is one of those tunes that gets stuck in your head whether you want it to or not.
It’s played about a dozen times. By the third time, you’re humming it; by the tenth, you’re wondering if the movie has any other songs in its library.
I noticed the lighting is really inconsistent too. In one shot, Lucia looks like an angel, and in the next, the shadows make her look like she’s in a horror movie.
It reminds me a bit of the rough edges in Giuli. There’s a certain honesty in how clunky these early talkies are.
The baby is surprisingly well-behaved for a kid who is basically a plot device. Usually, movie babies are just screaming machines, but this one just looks confused by the lighting rigs.
Enrico is hard to root for sometimes. He’s so focused on his career that he feels a bit flat compared to Lucia’s constant panic over the secret kid.
There’s a moment where he’s playing the violin and the synchronization is just slightly off. It’s one of those tiny things that reminds you how hard they were working to make the tech function at all.
Is it a masterpiece? Probably not. It’s a bit of a slog in the middle when they just talk and talk about their feelings in a very theatrical way.
But there is something very sweet about the ending. It’s predictable, sure, but it hits the right notes if you’re a softie for old-fashioned romance.
If you’ve seen Es mi hombre, you’ll recognize that specific brand of early-century drama where everything feels like a life-or-death situation. Every door slam is a tragedy.
I found myself more interested in the backgrounds than the main plot sometimes. The apartments look so lived-in and cramped, which feels way more real than the shiny sets we get now.
One guy in the cast, Umberto Sacripante, has a face that just belongs in this era. He looks like he’s constantly about to tell a secret he shouldn't know.
The film doesn't really know how to handle the passage of time very well. One minute she's mourning, the next she's basically a pro at hiding a toddler while working a job.
It’s definitely better than some of the other stuff from 1930, like Felix All Balled Up, though that's a cartoon so maybe that's an unfair comparison. But you get what I mean.
Anyway, if you can handle the hissing sound of the audio track, give it a shot. It’s a neat little time capsule of a world that was just learning how to make noise. 🎵
Just don't expect it to be The Godfather. It’s a simple story about a girl who probably should have just told her boyfriend the truth in the first five minutes.
IMDb —
1921
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