FeistyUpper
If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
filmalamosa
As another reviewer pointed out this bit of cold war propaganda (pro Soviet) was absurdly impossible. An axis soldier would have been shot period or arrested as a spy and killed slowly in a prison camp.So you have to dismiss the story as absurd as it stands and place it in Iran or Finland or some place where it could have happened. Or just suspend your disbelief.Once you do that you can enjoy this bit of really well done maudlin romance. Loren had to be at the height of her classy beauty in this film (before she was aged for the story).I loved the part where she spots an Italian man---the only handsome well dressed stylish man in any of the Russian scenes. Of course Loren herself is like a super nova star compared to the kerchiefed thick legged Russian women. Italian audiences must have loved this film.I give it a 7 as it is very enjoyable once you deal with the absurd story and the maudlin nature of the movie. As another reviewer states what is so wrong with first class maudlin??
Claudio Carvalho
In Naples, in World War II, the local Giovanna (Sophia Loren) has a torrid love affair with the soldier Antonio (Marcello Mastroianni), who is ready to embark to Africa. Giovanna proposes him to get married with her to get a leave of twelve days; then Antonio pretends that he is insane and he is sent to an asylum. However, the doctors discover the farce and they give the option to Antonio to go to the Russian front as volunteer instead of being sued. When Antonio is missing in action in Russia, Giovanna does not accept that he is dead. Years after the end of the war, Giovanna travels to Russia with a picture of Antonio to seek him out in the countryside. When she finds a lead in a village, her hope becomes disappointment with truth about his disappearance. "I Girasoli" is one of the most famous romances of cinema and discloses a beautiful story of love, hope, truth and renounce. Vittorio De Sica explores the chemistry between Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni to the best, supported by a magnificent cinematography and the wonderful soundtrack of Henry Mancini, which certainly is among the most beautiful ones of the cinema history. The screenplay uses much ellipsis, and my remarks are the lack of dates, leaving the viewer without any reference of how many years have passed; further, the dialogs in Russian that are not translated. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Os Girassóis da Rússia" ("The Russia's Sunflowers")
richbh
There are few scenes more moving or more powerful than the scene where Sophia meets her husband in Russia.The scene is at a train station: he's on the arriving train and she's waiting on the platform. A huge number of people get off the train and she's looking at everyone through the chaos of moving bodies. She doesn't really expect to find him, but hope is still alive.She sees him through the throng, he sees her.The wordless communication between them as she gets on the train to leave and he stays on the platform watching her go is nothing less than thrilling. It's a great cinematic moment - a great moment of acting for Loren.It is, perhaps, the single scene for which I shall always remember her.
soshoux
You know the plot.Sunflower was Vittorio De Sica's last film. It was dismissed by the critics as hopelessly maudlin melodrama. But anyone who cares enough to be reading this no doubt knows the humanity he crafted into every frame, and the beauty and sadness of life it evokes.Henry Mancini's theme song is, IMVHO, the very best he ever wrote. I'm reduced to tears every time I hear it. Yet it seems Mancini himself treated as a lesser child. His daughter recorded it to lyrics better left forgotten.
