Violent Summer (Titanus; Film-Around-the-World) is, according to Italian Director Valerio Zurlin,. "an old-wave picture in its way of recalling and filtering images." Instead of empty-souled profligates or angry young lathe operators, the film shows a pair of lovers, sensitively played by Eleanora Rossi-Drago and Jean-Louis Trintignant, enjoying a little measure of happiness at an Italian seaside resort in the troubled summer of 1943.
The heroine and her haughty mother are sharing a villa on the beach at Riccione when word comes that Eleanora's husband has been killed in action. Dawdling around the docks is Trintignant, who, thanks to his Fascist father's political...