‘Four Steps in the Clouds’ or — The Tender Budding Blossoms of Neorealism?
Paolo Bianchi (Gino Cervi) is a travelling salesman who lives with his over-bearing wife and kids in a cramped apartment block in Rome. One day, whilst lugging his chocolate samples across country by train, he gives up his seat to a forlorn looking young woman, Maria (Adriana Benetti). “Be careful,” a fellow traveller warns him, “a young lady will often pull the sad act to get what she wants from you then, as soon as she gets it, you’re ignored.”
Yet Paolo’s mind isn’t on doing his good deed for her amorous attentions (he is a married man with children, after all), but when he’s thrown off the train for losing his ticket both Paolo and Maria find themselves sitting together on a bus filled with various colourful Italians. Looks like these two are going to be stuck with each other for a while longer whether they like it or not.
With a set-up like that you can imagine Alessandro Blasetti’s ‘Four Steps in the Clouds’ (1942) playing out like a screwball comedy along the lines of Capra or Hawks as two strangers fall in love over the course of a crazy road-trip. Except that’s not what we get as when the film moves into its second half we discover Maria’s air of sadness is due to the fact she’s an unmarried mother-to-be. Terrified by her staunchly traditional parents’ response she convinces Paolo to accompany her to her rural home and pretend to be her husband. All he has to do is convincingly play the role for the rest of the day then he can go on his way while she strings her folks along in his absence until the baby arrives. Needless to say, this doesn’t go exactly to plan.
The script was co-written by the great neorealist screenwriter Cesare Zavattini and it could be his influence that keeps it all so firmly grounded, believable and anchored in the everyday. Also, this isn’t a romantic comedy that’s bristling with sexual chemistry. In fact, you could say it explicitly contains ZERO sexual chemistry between the two leads because Paolo’s concern for Maria is purely parental and her appeals to Paolo are pragmatic and practical.
There’s a scene where these two “newly-weds” are shown their marital bedroom and, again, we can imagine how such a situation might play out in Hollywood with the awkwardness of having to share a bed together generating an undercurrent of unspoken eroticism. Except there’s none of that here with the predicament creating only exasperation, irritation and annoyance.
Indeed, the very concept of strong emotions are deliberately kept at arm’s-length (this is all very much about tolerance within the family unit as opposed to two people falling for each other) until the very final moment when, realising the time has come for what is their permanent goodbye, Paolo and Maria look into each other’s eyes and suddenly realise they love each other intensely. It’s an incredibly heart-breaking moment and played to tear-jerking perfection by Cervi and Benetti.
The film closes with an unexpected manifestation of psychological shock. What does it mean? Has this adventure suddenly made Paolo appreciate the family he’s taken for granted and the jolt has shaken him awake to that fact, or is it the devastating impact of realising he has just left his last chance for true happiness behind? I suspect the film leans heavily towards the latter.
‘Four Steps in the Clouds’ is funny, vibrant, tender and deeply human. It’s also a fascinating example of what would later become neorealism as well of just how great, and versatile, a director Blasetti could be (this is an exquisitely crafted movie).
The film was re-made in the 1990’s starring Keanu Reeves. I haven’t seen it but, apparently, Italians consider it a travesty and an act of cultural vandalism.
