Il Grido (English: The Cry) is a 1957 Italian black-and-white drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Steve Cochran, Alida Valli, Betsy Blair, and Dorian Gray. Based on a story by Antonioni, the film is about a man who wanders aimlessly, away from his town, away from the woman he loved, and becomes emotionally and socially inactive.Il Grido won the Locarno International Film Festival Golden Leopard Award in 1957, and the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon Award for Best Cinematography (Gianni di Venanzo) in 1958.
Aldo (Steve Cochran) has worked at the sugar refinery in Goriano for seven years. His long-time mistress, Irma (Alida Valli), learns that her husband, who left for Australia years ago in search of a job, recently died there. Irma goes to the sugar refinery and drops off Aldo's lunch, but does not stay to talk with him. Concerned about her behavior, Aldo goes back to the house where they discuss her husband's death. Aldo suggests that after seven years they can finally get married and legitimize their daughter, Rosina (Mirna Girardi). The next day, Irma reveals that she loves someone else. Aldo can hardly believe her words, saying, "All these years, nothing was true." In the coming days he tries desperately to change her mind but it is no use, and the relationship ends with him slapping her in public.
Plot
After living seven years with the mechanic Aldo, having a daughter with him, the simple woman Irma is informed that her absent husband had just died in Sydney. She becomes upset when Aldo proposes to marry her and she tells him that she is going to leave him. Unable to explain how much he loves her, Aldo takes their daughter Rosina and travels with her, meeting different women in different places, trying to establish a new relationship and fill the emptiness of his sentimental life. He visits his former lover Elvia; he meets and lives with the widow Virginia, who owns a gas station; he lives with the prostitute Andreina. But these relationships never complete the needy Aldo.
Keywords: alienation, depression, falling-from-height, gas-station, incommunicability, loneliness, mechanic, refinery, valley, worker-drama
Ah-ah-ah Facce d'angeli luridi
E sono giorni che guardo il cielo
e non vedo il sole
e le mie notti non sono più splendide d'amore
e la mia bocca non beve più
perché ha bevuto tutto
ho solo fame di una giustizia che ormai mi ha rotto
Ah-ah-ah Facce d'angeli luridi
ah-ah-ah burattini fanatici
e sono stanco di vedere mamme cercare aiuto
siamo la gente che vive colpe di chi ha goduto
ricorda il tempo che già dicevo no
ma adesso basta
non voglio più non ci provare più
a soffocare il grido no
ed io lo so che anche se dico no
sono un privilegiato
ma non pensare ch' io non abbia occhi
perché ho già pagato
e proprio adesso che li alzo al cielo
e che non c'è più il sole
mi accorgo quanta gente piange
per un po' d'amore
Ah-ah-ah Facce d'angeli luridi
ah-ah-ah voi giocate con gli alibi
come sarebbe vedere in noi
solo sorrisi e pace
e in tutti gli angoli di questo mondo
uomini felici
telegiornali di bambini allegri
di giochi e fate
senza paura di un futuro al buio
che li stordisce no
Ah-ah-ah Facce d'angeli luridi
ah-ah-ah il potere ci affascina
ah-ah-ah Facce d'angeli luridi
ah-ah-ah criminali fanatici
ah-ah-ah due millenni di lacrime
ah-ah-ah noi ubriachi di frottole
ah-ah-ah Facce d'angeli luridi
ah-ah-ah noi non vogliamo i sonniferi