Bell' Antonio (Levine; Embassy), directed by Italy's Mauro Bolognini, is a serious and discreet discussion of a case of impotence. The hero (Marcello Mastroianni) lusts only for women he cannot love; the woman he loves (Claudia Cardinale) he imagines an "angel," and he cannot imagine muddying her wings with animality. When she wins an annulment he is desolate, and his family is disgraced in Sicily, where the family lives, a man's virility and his public position are intimately interdependent. In despair, the young man turns to a servant girl, gets her with child....
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