Senso

1954 Directed by Luchino Visconti

A troubled and neurotic Italian Countess betrays her entire country for a self-destructive love affair with an Austrian Lieutenant.

Alida Valli Farley Granger Heinz Moog Rina Morelli Christian Marquand Sergio Fantoni Tino Bianchi Ernst Nadherny Tonio Selwart Marcella Mariani Massimo Girotti

Alternative Titles

The Wanton Countess, Sedução da Carne, Sentimento, Roes der Zinnen, 여름의 폭풍

history drama romance

123 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½

Italian director Luchino Visconti assigns some of the heaviest usages of Technicolor beyond the boundaries of a Hollywood studio production with Senso, an emotionally charged and historical saga. It’s an adaptation of Camillo Boito's 1882 novella with a dramatic commandeering of cinematography by G.R. Aldo, and the motion of the camera is consistently outstanding, from the luxurious tracking shots that emphasise physical geometry to the tensely-composed stationary shots which concentrate on the features of the aristocracy. The narrative, which takes place during the third Italian war of independence, possesses a delicate sense of putrescence around its perimeters highlighting its corruptness and heinousness.
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★½ 2

41/100
No real way to avoid sounding like a Philistine here, so I'll just resign myself to my fate. Like most stories involving romantic and/or sexual masochism, it's just profoundly uninteresting to me—from the jump, it's clear that Valli's Countess has idiotically hitched her lust-wagon to a scoundrel, and there's no modulation whatsoever thereafter. She just keeps being foolish and he just keeps taking advantage. (I have the same issue with many Fassbinder films, for the record, especially Fox and His Friends.) Their final scene together, in which he drops the pretense and openly humiliates her in front of a hooker, rings especially false to me; it's suggested that his attack is motivated primarily by self-loathing, but that doesn't jibe…
Review by Jacob ★★★ 4

“I'm not your romantic hero!”
I love when an ending in a film changes your whole perspective. This isn’t your usual melodrama. Yes, it can get very mushy but it’s all toxic. It leads to nothing but to self destruction. This takes dysfunctional relationships to another level.
There’s not much I can say about the technical aspect considering I watched a version with very low quality, which fortunately didn’t hurt my viewing pleasure. I did notice some magnificent costumes and set designs that definitely helped the time period it was set in.
What moved me the most was the two leading performances. Funny to think that these two actors wasn’t supposed to be the ones leading the film, but I’m…
Review by Stephen M ★★★★

A rewatch of Visconti's "Senso" reminded me of all the things I like about this film. It's like an opera, which is no surprise given the director's work in this medium: intense melodrama and emotions, a turbulent historical background, vivid colors, sumptuous interior sets and a tragic ending. I especially like the wonderful shots of Venice and the authentic 19th-century period details and costumes. It also has great use of classical music in the soundtrack, as Visconti does in other films. Here it's Bruckner's 7th Symphony.
The story is dramatic and occasionally over-the-top: During the Austrian occupation of Venice, an Italian countess who's a Nationalist sympathizer and unhappily married to an older noble who's collaborating with the occupiers, falls in…
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★

Visconti's brutally tragic romance seen through the elegant scope of 19th-century Venice, an emotion-driven roller coaster of irrational reactions fragmented into little pieces of lust, love, tears and treason. Suddenly, the scope maximizes and the imminent social conflict, Italy's struggle for liberation (which was used during the first half of the movie merely as a background), explodes and sends our doomed protagonists into destinies forged by a mastermind of Greek tragedies. Gorgeous!
99/100
Review by Patrick Pryor ★★★★ 1

Findum, Fuckum & Flee: The Movie
Senso showcases hyper lush locations and photography that made me gasp several times. This Visconti fella sure has an eye! The masochist love melodrama feels a little rote and predictable, and I could’ve done without all the wartime shenanigans and needlessly convoluted political entanglements between countries. But that L-O-O-K. I guess it’s a testament to the strength of the imagery that my eye often wandered off the subtitles and got lost in all the opulent sets and costumes and actual old world locations. Senso rally twists that bad love knife when the characters stop talking and pop their anger, lust, foolishness, and greed off the gorgeous screen.
Review by Rafael Jovine ★★★½

In the midst of a political turnoil between Austria and Italy, a troubled countess starts an affair with a high ranking Austrian officer.
Boy! Talking about a movie with so much interesting behind the scenes. From Tinto Brass actually readapting the story to the cast for the main roles planned for Ingrid Bergman (who was busy with another film) and Marlon Brando, who was ditched for Farley Granger, who producers considered a bigger star than Brando. Yeah, you know, Farley Granger. Y'all heard about him, right?
Another standout, without a doubt, is its stunning cinematography. My God! What a beautiful movie to look at. Now, I don't know if I am kinda cheating as I watched in a new 4K…
Review by Bruno Andrade ★★★★★

Glauber Rocha: formalista, modernista e, olha só, precursor do Biette na discussão sobre o que constitui o trabalho específico do cineasta.

DRAMATURGIA FÍLMICA: VISCONTI
[1]
Há que se colocar também a problemática da dramaturgia fílmica, componente do binômio montagem externa-interna ou mais precisamente conflito de enquadramento e composição. No primeiro estaria a montagem como expressão criativa; no segundo, como sistema narrativo.
Se Eisenstein teoriza a montagem dialética, com o sentido nascendo do conflito anterior de dois fotogramas, isso não implica em dogma: foi apenas até hoje o método que mais se aproximou do filme absoluto, não invalidando, contudo, a mensagem linear pregada por Pudovkin, próxima (com ligeiras variações) da corporificação da ideia, que marca o estilo de Luchino Visconti.
Aliás,…
Review by bingo ★★★★

i went into this with very low expectations... and then farley granger showed up and started talking about how much he loved looking at himself in the mirror and i was sold
Review by Evan ★★★★½

Opens with a production of Il trovatore being interrupted by a political protest. We never see the conclusion of that opera -- instead, the activists and targets become the players in an entirely different one informed by Hollywood melodrama. It's funny to hear that Visconti's top three choices for the male lead were Marlon Brando, Tab Hunter, and Farley Granger, because there's such a queer ambiguity to the role and an aloofness in his half of the bloodless romance that forms the basis for the sweeping narrative. If there's any fault here, it's the boring war sequences that don't really serve any purpose other than to act as a loud, unofficial intermission before the final act. Fewer weekend war reenactments and more Farley Granger lounging in a granary, please!
Review by milesdinou ★★★★½ 2

Senso. With that word, Luchino Visconti constructed one of the finest cinematic operas of all time. And, I'm afraid to admit, this is my first foray into this immaculate director's work. Man, did I start off with a bang!
Senso is a classic Greek tragedy, blending and adapting the ideas of doomed love from Romeo and Juliet whilst setting the story in Italy back in 1866.
We follow Contessa Livia Serpieri (a tour de force performance by Alida Valli) as she is both depressed by the war around her, and longing to get away from her current "Italian nationalist" husband. Well, she successfully does that by falling in love with Austrian Lieutenant Franz Mahler (Farley Granger). The film demonstrates how they…
Review by Haddad ★★★★

لقد اشرقت الشمس ، علي ان اذهب و إلا سوف يرونني.. الى اللقاء
لا ، لا تذهب الأن ، سأخبئك.. ساحتفظ بك ليوم اخر ايضا لم اكتفي منك بعد

Recent reviews

Review by Andrew Wofford

The first thirty minutes was kind of engrossing, but after these two kids finally got together it became increasingly soap opera melodramatic. I think it lost telling a story.
To say something nice, it had a very painterly aesthetic to the visuals.
This may be blasphemously non-feminist, but was Livia’s last act a last betrayal of her morals? I imagine some viewers would be enraged if she did nothing instead so, as is often my problem, I don’t know what to think because I don’t know how I feel. More of a passive observer than a participant. But I’m imagining what the intent was, even though that’s not always the point of the art.
Review by Nathalie ★★★½

Après l’austérité déchirante de ses trois premiers films néoréalistes en noir et blanc (Ossessione, La terre tremble, Bellissima), Visconti passe à la sensualité et au Technicolor pour un pur mélodrame de la passion sur fond de révolution garibaldienne. Trahison politique et esthétique que lui fit payer le public de l’époque. Ce qui le poussera à revenir un temps au noir et blanc et à des sujets plus prolétaires pour ses deux films suivants, Les Nuits blanches et Rocco et ses frères. Senso apparaît pourtant aujourd’hui comme une parfaite œuvre de transition entre ses drames de la misère sous influence communiste des années 1940 et ses somptueuses tragédies historiques des années 1960 et 1970.
Venise, printemps 1866, derniers jours de l’occupation…
Review by maxmaller

an hour forty of baroque sighing followed by the seediest twenty mins of film i've ever seen
Review by Josh Toomes ★★★★

84/100
An entirely grand, beautiful melody on love, deceit and betrayal. 'Senso' carries this wrathful weight to it that I found pretty addictive, it's big on scale, big on war and big on romance, three things I always enjoy.
Review by Rodrigo Heber

O diálogo entre a ópera e o realismo é perfeito. A história é conduzida pela premissa de amor impulsivo e exagerado, digno de uma ópera, e que surge do nada e oblitera, para a protagonista, a realidade objetiva e o contexto político de tal modo que seus atos relaticos à política são relativos soberanamente ao seu romance. É doloroso ver os enganos e os desdobramentos da história aos quais a realidade parece não agir, apenas a protagonista. É a essência romântica em choque com a essência realista filmado por um diretor um tanto quanto objetivo (por razões parciais).
Um filme muito bonito e denso (ele é bem enxuto e não dedica tempo à falta de substância, embora possa, por vezes, parecer meio dispersante para alguém que dorme pouco e se enche de café, como eu. Tenho que melhorar meus hábitos).
Review by Sascha ★★★½

masterfully staged while also being a bit too theatrical - especially the acting. livia is portrayed a bit too naive and gullible for me and franz is the real fuckboy anyway.
very good final scene though.
Review by David2 ★★★★½

Sublime fresque technicolor de Visconti qui réunit la grande histoire de l’Italie avec la petite histoire d’un amour interdit qui vire à la folie.
BR Criterion
Review by Taylor Leverage ★★★½

Senso has some wonderful production value, bright color, and a storyline that has more disillusionment than the vast majority of period romances. Valli's Countess Livia Serpieri is sexually and romantically unfulfilled, and throws herself without inhibition into the arms of Granger's Franz Maller, a young officer of a foreign military at war with her own, who woos her with honeyed words but ultimately only sees her as a source of wealth and influence. Their doomed affair is based on self-serving interests, neither is sympathetic, and each of them are quite animalistic and crude underneath their thin veneer of respectability. The film does well to present what is initially a rather conventional forbidden affair (the unbridled passion that stereotypically makes it…
Review by WEJDAN ★★★★

.“سأحتفظ بك ليوم آخر”
Review by Johnny Rose ★★★★½

i love this movie
Review by Jon Sánchez Molina ★★★★★

Es fascinante la facilidad con la que Luchino Visconti se mueve entre la historia de su país para dar peliculas perfectas y con un contexto y contenido únicos. Senso no es menos, pues en plena ocupación Austriaca en Italia una aristócrata cae enamorada de un soldado Austriaco desencadenado un romance altamente controversial.
Visconti consigue recrear a la perfección una época y un conflicto histórico enorme con los cambios políticos que supone viajar a través de esos años tan efervescentes. No sólo impacta el echo de esa maestría para guiar la obra, sino lo cruel que resulta la trama para la pobre protagonista y lo bien que muestra una realidad.
Esa realidad no es más que la de esa mujer casada…
Review by David Conner ★★★★★

Yet another camp film that I came to later in life because of my longstanding aversion to historical costume dramas. In my defense, had it retained its original English title, The Wanton Contessa, I would have been all over it decades ago. Now let’s get into it...
This film represents the apotheosis of “the Liberace effect”* in 1950s cinema. As Liberace himself showed us, by wrapping your gayness in ultra-luxurious costumes, hyper-ornate sets, and super-fey performances, you can practically ensure that no one will be able to see your actual homosexuality anymore beneath all the dazzling glitz and showmanship, no matter how flamingly obvious it is. There’s one word in American English that captures this paradoxical coexistence of queer attention-seeking and…