Girl with a Suitcase (1961)

Expecting just a decent vehicle for Claudia Cardinale, I found yet another class act in her résumé. Deservedly famed for her sultry beauty, Cardinale was also the muse of artists like the master Sergio Leone, for whom she co-starred in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Incredibly sexy and lovely a woman as she was, Cardinale's dramatic abilities were put to test again and again, and I for one acknowledge her a winner. She was fiery in The Professionals (1966), ethereal in Eight and a Half (1963), aristocratic in The Leopard (1963); she could act, in other words, and marvellously she did. So Italy, you can't be glad only for Sophia. Even though I haven't seen much of her in a while, miss Cardinale actually has never stopped working.

Girl with a Suitcase is a tender love story with none of the cheesiness and flat contrivances that harm even the love stories of yesteryear. And what is more remarkable, a romance which is not fantastic at all, but has the taste of reality that marks the best of Neorealist cinema. Perhaps director Valerio Zurlini doesn't possess the personality of a Vittorio De Sica, yet his film does have a strong enough one. Scripted by five writers, among them Zurlini and Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (author of The Divine Nymph), its subtlety and humour are standouts from the start. The delicacy of the writing is shared by Zurlini's commanding cinematography, with Tino Santoni behind the camera. In truth, it is a masterful job: non arty-crafty shots that tell the characters' feelings and thoughts. Cardinale has the presence to fill a role that in other actress' hands would have made sink the entire picture. She is an enigma that compels the viewer's attention, but by the end she remains one just for being a woman with a past merely glimpsed, and that's a tribute to her acting props; Cardinale makes us feel for Aida, a woman who can't avoid to be wanted by every guy she meets, and whose life has forced her to do a practical transaction: ultimately, she may not be exactly a (golden-hearted) whore, yet comes close.

The performance of Cardinale's co-star Jacques Perrin matches hers all the way; it's the portrayal of a sensitive teen-aged as a figure from Visconti's or out of De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970). Perrin was to continue a prolific career after Girl: he appeared in Z (1969), one of his collaborations with Constantin Costa-Gavras; he also was the adult Salvatore in the huge hit Cinema Paradiso (1988); and he still has appeared in a success as relatively recent as The Chorus (2004). There are also two good actors in minor but significant parts: Romolo Valli (the family's father in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) as the priest and a slim Gian Maria Volonté, best known for his Indio in Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965), as Aida's angry ex-lover. Finally, the attractive soundtrack is made of Verdi and Dimitri Tiomkin, and it's well used too. A title that is almost as fine as its leading lady, definitely worth at least a watch.