February 5, 2025

FILMHOUNDS Magazine

All things film – In print and online

A Milestone of Italian Cinema – Rocco and His Brothers (Film Review)

Rocco and His Brothers begins with a train coming into the Central Station in Milan. This is an image a lot of people in the audience will recognise and associate with the migration from the south to the north that was extremely popular at the time. Set in Milan in 1960, Rocco and His Brothers follows the titular Rocco Parondi (Alain Delon) and his brothers – Simone (Renato Salvatori), Ciro (Max Carter), and Luca (Rocco Vidolazzi) who is merely a child – as they move in with their eldest brother Vincenzo (Spiros Focás) in Milan to find fortune in the north of Italy.

While Rocco and His Brothers may not be an entirely Neorealism film: the use of professional actors would, for example, technically go against the Neorealist tradition, which according to many film historians had already ended by the time this film came out.  However, it still very much belongs to the Italian cinematic tradition of politically conscious realist cinema with its focus on working-class characters who are trying to create a better life for themselves. While depicting the harsh reality that Rocco and his family face when they arrive in Milan, Visconti also seems to portray some hope for the future through Luca’s character. Traditionally, children have come to represent the hope for a better life in Neorealism, and in this sense, this film is no different as Luca is a child who sees and hears everything that happens in this story and embodies the promise of a more hopeful future.

From the very beginning of Rocco and His Brothers, it is clear that the narrative is split into chapters, each focusing on one of the brothers’ stories primarily. Eventually, the various plots are bound to come together which is executed well and in a satisfying manner as all the stories end up informing each other. The structure is fascinating, but the movie could have perhaps benefitted from an equal focus on each of the brothers. For example, Ciro’s plotline with the night school is hardly explored in the film but would have been very fascinating to see as a reality that was very true in Italy at the time.

Most of Rocco and His Brother does, in fact, paint an accurate picture of 1960s Italy. A lot of the movie focuses on the discrimination that people from the South faced when moving to the north of Italy – and more specifically Milan in this film – for a better life. Similarly, Visconti paints the picture of a changing Italy. In the early 1960s, when the film was made and set, the country experienced a significant change as it completed its post-war transition from a relatively poor country to an economically and socially advanced one. With Italy on the brink of an economic boom, Visconti explores this through the lives of the four brothers and how each of them is affected – positively in some cases or negatively in others – by such a key moment in the history of the country.

Unfortunately, the female characters feel entirely too one-dimensional, even for a film made in the 1960s. While they are not entirely traditional characters – after all, Visconti chooses to have a prostitute as one of his main female characters in this film – they have entirely too little action in their lives and destiny. Ultimately, they feel like instruments for the plot and development of the male characters rather than characters in their own right. In the end, there are only two options available for the women in this film: either become dutiful wives as a reward for their love for their man or be punished by the narrative and forced to disgrace and suffer.

Rocco and His Brothers is in cinemas across the UK & Ireland now