Senso (film)

Senso is a 1954 melodrama film, an adaptation of Camillo Boitos Italian novella Senso by the Italian director Luchino Visconti, with Alida Valli as Livia Serpieri and Farley Granger as Lieutenant Franz Mahler.

Senso is set in Italy around 1866, when the ItalianAustrian war of unification was coming to an end. The story opens in the La Fenice opera house in Venice during a performance of Il Trovatore. At the close of Manricos rousing aria Di quella pira, the opera is interrupted by a boisterous protest by Italian Nationalists against the occupying Austrian troops present in the theater. Livia Serpieri, an Italian countess, unhappily married to a stuffy older aristocrat, bears witness to this and tries to conceal the fact that her cousin Marquis Roberto Ussoni has organized the protest. During the commotion, she meets a dashing young Austrian Officer named Franz Mahler, and is instantly smitten with him. The two begin a secretive love affair. Despite the fact that Franz was responsible for sending Roberto into exile for his radical behavior, Livia vainly pretends not to be aware of it.Although Franz is obviously using Livia for her money and social status, Livia throws herself into an affair of complete sexual abandon with Franz, giving away her money and not caring what society thinks about her. But soon, Franz begins failing to show up for their trysts and Livia becomes consumed by jealousy and paranoia. The war finally forces the lovers apart, with Livias husband taking her away to their villa in the country in order to avoid the carnage. Late one night, Franz arrives on the estate, and secrets himself into Livias bedroom. He asks her for more money to bribe the army doctors into keeping away from the battlefield Livia complies, giving away all of the money she was holding for Roberto, who intended to supply it to the partisans fighting the Austrians. Livias betrayal leads to tragic consequences the Austrians overwhelm the underequipped Italians. ........

Source: Wikipedia