An early masterwork

A rich husband is curious about his beautiful war-bride's past and has her investigated, ironically reuniting her with an ex-lover. However, a guilty secret tore the lovers apart before; will it do so again? And have they been watching 'Ossessione'? In his first full-length feature, Antonioni balances the dramatic elements of the story - and also traditional melodrama, psychological character-study, and neo-realist style - in a most elegant and satisfying way. I somehow found myself watching the DVD with both dubbing and subtitles. None of us likes dubbing, but I usually feel that at least it reproduces most of the original dialogue, subtitles being able to provide only a short dry summary. In this instance, though, it was bizarrely like watching two different films. It's disconcerting when the leading man is called Guido in the subtitles, but Lewis in the dubbing. If a character orders a soda in one, it becomes a beer in the other. A marriage takes place in 1943 or 1944, depending which version you're following. Dutchmen are transmuted into Frenchmen. At one point, Lucia Bosé asks her maid to bring her coffee, but the subtitle, surreally, reads 'Bring me an envelope'! And finally, in a triumph of ineptitude, the subtitles and the dubbing contrive to deliver two completely different endings. Of the two options on the menu, watch the Italian version with the subtitles, which seems on the whole to manage the more reliable reading. Either way, though, your enjoyment of this excellent precursor to Antonioni's celebrated later films such as L'Avventura, La Notte and Deserto Rosso shouldn't be impaired too much; the quality overcomes everything.