Rocco and His Brothers (15)

(Subtitled)

Alain Delon is magnetic as always in this compelling 1960s tale of homesickness, aspiration, anguish and rage.

Ageing widow Rosaria (Katina Paxinou) has come to Milan with four of her five sons (including Rocco, played by Delon) looking for an aspirational new start in the prosperous north. Their other brother Vincenzo (Spiros Focás) is already there, engaged to Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale), whose parents are hostile to this entire, uncouth southern clan turning up and showing signs of wanting charity. But Rosario and her boys get social housing; Ciro gets a job with Alfa Romeo, Luca as a grocer’s delivery boy, Rocco gets a job in an ultra-modern dry cleaner’s and Simone fatefully tries his luck as a boxer. But Simone is only to find, to his jealous rage, that Rocco is easily better than him at boxing. However, Simone and Rocco fall for the same local prostitute Nadia, whose murder breaks up the fractious family for good.

Director Luchino Visconti, who arguably founded the Italian neorealist movement, crafts a raw, energetic masterpiece bristling with well-measured tension and melodrama, with Milan itself becoming a central character