A Brief Vacation

For his last film released in America, De Sica once more dealt with a person living what Thoreau called a life of "quiet desperation." Bolkan is a factory worker barely able to support her disabled spouse, three children, brother-in-law, and senile mother. She grows disgusted with her life and a bureaucratic system that consistently fails to serve the common laborer. When she is diagnosed as tubercular, she is sent to a mountainside spa to recuperate. There she thrives, physically as well as spiritually. Surrounded by people with similar ailments, Bolkan finds acceptance and engages in a love affair with another patient. Her "brief vacation" ends when she is releas...