Sunflower or "I Girasoli" is a movie made in 1970 featuring Ms. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroiani...I had the priviledge of watching the movie last night at the comfort of my Home...we ordered the DVD, since it is one of my Hubby's favorite movies. He saw this movie when he was 6 years old and it is also a favorite of his mother's. I was not even born yet in 1970, but I recall hearing the theme to this movie before, a Henry Mancini creation...you'll cry when you hear it and actually I felt like sobbing the very moment that I heard it at the opening of the movie...Hubby have boasted about this movie to me, he says it is the saddest movie he's ever seen but does not recall the ending of the movie (now he knows from our viewing last night!)...I honestly thought it's "old-school", but I like nostalgia and I appreciate old movies like that...the simplicity, the humor, the time-period, the emotion, the actors...Sophia Loren is still beautiful up till now, she sure was a knock-out during those days and she even resembles Hubby's Mommeeee Victoria when she was younger...now you know where Hubby got his good looks hehehe!!! The kiddos actually got Hubby the movie for his birthday...we were trying to think of a gift for him and I thought about this movie since he always tells me to try to find it...you can say that he got very nostalgic and felt like he's 6 years old again...OK, this is the first movie I've seen of Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroiani. The movie is in Italian, French, and Russian with English subtitles, I thought it was cool having to read subtitles and it just felt authentic that they spoke in their languange, Italian. They played the theme in the beginning of the movie and I mentioned earlier that it almost made me sob...sooo sad. I found the young Giovanna (Loren) and Antonio (Mastroiani) very silly and funny, their transition and process of aging was remarkable as well throughout the movie...you will see in the movie what the war has done to them over the years, how much they have aged, and how their love just could not be...how Giovanna's strength and determinationn just all faded the moment that she found out that Antonio has remarried and is alive...everyone has given up and thought Antonio died...I can see the pain in Giovanna's face and feel her anger and helplessness through her tears...it was just so sad. A lot of the scenes were done in a train station, it gave me the idea that Antonio will be leaving never to return. I liked that they featured old Russia...Kremlin, I think they even showed the old nuclear power plants, the cemetery of Italian soldiers by the sunflower fields...The story is very simple, realistic, tragic, and genuine...I love this movie, now included on my list of faves...The Love Story, Breakfast @ Tiffany's, 16 Candles, Gladiator, Somewhere In Time, Meet Joe Black, The Notebook, Thomas Crown Affair, The Da Vinci Code, Braveheart...etc We decided last night that we should have an "Old Movies" night...next choice I think is "Casablanca" or "The Love Story"...until my next movie review...I guarantee you'll like this movie, "I Girasoli"...thanks to Hubby!
