Rosa Funzeca

After twenty years, the very good-looking middle-aged woman Rosa decides to give up prostitution. She looks forward to being reunited with her teenage son Fernando, who was brought up by priests. She spends her savings on buying a house and opens a flower stall. But it soon becomes apparent that she cannot manage financially and she is forced to take to the streets again. Her close bond with Fernando turns out to be a relationship filled with reticence, but also complicity. Both are heading for a tragic and inevitable fate.Sweaping gestures and beautiful saturated black & white photography are used to give body to the whore, the mother, the wife and the woman Rosa Funzeca. With great feeling for the local language and couleur locale (Naples), Grimaldi made a film about sorrow and joy, hope and despair in everyday life. The difficult role of Rosa was played by the excellent Ida di Benedetto. The other roles, including that of the unusual Mafioso loan shark, are completely natural too. A subtle and moving neoneorealistic melodrama with simple eloquence.See also: Un mondo d’amore/A World of Love.