La Strada

By the one and only
Federico Fellini.

Gelsomina the main character is a free spirit. In my International film course a fellow student found her annoying.
This struck a cord with me. Gelsomina is the happy go lucky tramp. She is the representation of naivity.
Fellini asks why are we conditioned to see endless optimisim as a weakness ?
In Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker the writer in the zone tells us that we must hold on to being soft and that hardening is the road to death. Being effected is being alive but hardening and ambivanace is a self imposed demise.
Fellini has the same concept in mind, Gelsomina is beautiful in her freedom but it constant beating down from Zampono( the strong man) leads to her inability to see joy and carefree living.
She stays on the street waiting for him even though he went off with another woman. She believes he will come back. This annoys a modern audience becuase we want to see the worst or what we define as "reality". Cheating, lieing these things are real. Life is hard.
With those sayings we harden ourselves. Zampono is hardened. He is not only the epdimy of ultra masculine societal expectations but he is also for most of the movie devoid of empathy. One wonders if he feels anything other than pride until the end. He chases after Gelosmina because she is his property. He bought her. It looks poor on him if she left. The traveling caravan through the dim lighting, cramped space and forceful imposition is Gelsominas prison.
Zampono breaks chains with the power of his chest. His heart crushes steel but only for his gain.