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6.6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The Song of the Sun remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you have a massive soft spot for 1930s-style musical farce. If you find the idea of a lawyer masquerading as a tenor charming, you’ll have a grand time. If you prefer your movies to have, you know, actual stakes or logical plot developments, you are going to hate this.
The whole thing hinges on a guy who just decides to lie to a woman. It’s a bit clunky. You can almost see the actors waiting for their cues instead of actually living in the scene. Sometimes Vittorio De Sica just stands there, and you wonder if he’s thinking about his lunch order.
The office scenes are the highlight, mostly because the secretary is the only one who seems to be in on the joke. The way the light hits the set pieces during the singing parts is weirdly distracting. It’s like they spent all their budget on one single spotlight.
It’s not as dark as M, obviously. It’s much more in line with the kind of light fluff you’d see in Kiddie Revue, but with more suits and fewer kids. The pacing is a total mess, but in a way that feels like a home movie gone wrong.
There is this one moment where the lead character tries to pull off a high note, and the camera cuts away so quickly it’s almost funny. Like the director knew the guy couldn't hit it and just gave up. Classic.
Don’t go looking for deep meaning here. It’s just people running around in fancy rooms. It reminds me a bit of the awkward energy in The Golf Specialist, where the joke is just 'look at this guy doing a thing he isn't good at.' It stays that way for way too long. 🎶
Sometimes the movie gets noticeably better when it just lets the music play and stops trying to force the plot along. Those moments of silence in the dialogue are actually a relief. It’s a very specific type of old-world charm that either lands perfectly or lands like a lead balloon.