Long unavailable in its entirety Roberto Rossellini's "L'Amore" remains one of his very greatest films. It is, in fact, two films; the second part, "The Miracle" has been shown separately and ran into censorship problems both in Italy and abroad. Fundamentally, it is a vehicle for Anna Magnani who is quite magnificent. In the first part, Cocteau's monologue "The Human Voice", she is the only person on screen, a lone woman on the telephone to the lover who has left her for another woman. For a good deal of the time Rossellini keeps the camera on that wonderful face and she is heart-breaking.
In the second part she is the deluded peasant seduced, and made pregnant, by none other than Federico Fellini , (who co-wrote the script with Rossellini and Tullio Pinelli). Magnani believes her seducer to be St Jospeh and the baby she is carrying to be some sort of new Messiah, (it was this that so offended the powers that be). Again she is magnificent, (Rossellini dedicated the film 'to the art of Anna Magnani"), in a role totally different from the part she plays in "The Human Voice". It is easy to see how this second part could be released separately from the first, (they are very different in tone), and this small masterpiece is as great a 'short' film as the cinema has given us. Nevertheless, seeing both parts together is testament to the genius of both director and star. Essential.
