Il sole negli occhi

After the death of her parents, Celestina (Irene Galter) moves from an Umbrian mountain village to Rome to take a job as a housemaid. At first, she feels overwhelmed by the size of the city and the freedoms of a more liberal society. When she makes the acquaintance of a young man (Gabriele Ferzetti), she rejects him, even though she likes him: his advances do not conform to the traditional rules of behavior she has been taught. Pietrangeli's debut already pointed to what would become the central themes of his work. He viewed the role of women in changing post-war Italian society with skepticism, depicting them as caught between tradition and modernity; his critical evaluation of male behavioral patterns showed that his sympathy lay with women. (hjf)