We The Living

They don't make films like this anymore. First shown in Italy in 1942, but banned by Mussolini's government and lost until it was rediscovered and re-edited (after an intensive search by the producers), WE THE LIVING has a syrupy score, misty photography, melodramatic confrontations, heroic renunciations, and suicides in the name of lost ideals. And it works. An adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel, the film mixes lots of anti-Communist politics with its passion, but there's still much passion in this tale set in Russia in the early 1920s. Opposed to the new Bolshevik regime are the lovers Kira Argounova (Alida Valli) and Leo Kovalensky (Rossano Brazzi). When Leo is arre...