Europe '51

Europe '51, also known as The Greatest Love, is a 1952 Italian neorealist film directed by Roberto Rossellini, starring Ingrid Bergman and Alexander Knox. The film follows an industrialist's wife who, after the death of her young son, turns towards a rigorous humanitarianism. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978." Plot Due to a labour strike, Irene Girard, wife of American industrialist George Girard, returns late to their apartment in post-war Rome, where she is giving a dinner party for their relatives. Her young son Michel laments that she has hardly time for him, to which she replies that it's time for him to grow up and stop being over-sensitive. During dinner, the guests get involved in a debate about politics. While Irene's cousin André, a Communist who writes for a political newspaper, predicts peace for the world, a conservative friend of Irene is convinced that the world is heading straight for war. The party abruptly comes to an end when Michel falls down the building's stairs and is hospitalised for a fracture of the hip bone. At the hospital, Irene learns that Michel might have hurt himself by purpose to receive attention. Irene promises Michel that from now on she will always stay with him. When Michel dies shortly after from a blood clot, Irene falls into a crisis. After a few days, Irene is called up by André and agrees to meet with him. Like her husband and mother, he urges her to find a way out of her present state and stop blaming herself for Michel's death. If there were anyone to blame, it was post-war society and the child's growing up in fear during a war. He tells Irene of a young boy doomed to die because his poor family can't afford to pay for the expensive medicine. After paying a visit to the boy's home with André, Irene, shaken by the poor circumstances which the family lives in, donates the money needed for the medication. On her next visit, she is thanked by the child's family and the neighbours who gather spontaneously. A young woman neighbour, Ines, shows up and complains about the noise which prevents her from sleeping. The neighbours, speaking disdainfully of her, tell Irene that Ines is working as a prostitute during the night. Irene meets a young woman living with six children in a small shack by the river.