You got a Sicilian Baron who decides he doesn't want to be with his loving, doting, affectionate wife. He would rather be able to fuck his 16 year old first cousin (he's 37.) But, you know, Catholicism, so he can't actually divorce his wife. So he's got to kill her.
We see plenty of visions of her dying in different ways. Him pushing her into a boiling pot used to make soap. Throwing her into quicksand. Asking a favor of the local mafioso. But he settles on a different, culturally appropriate scheme. Contrive a way to make her be unfaithful, and then he can kill her for having dishonored him. The sentence for that would be three to seven years, and since he's an educated aristocrat, with a good lawyer, he'll probably get the minimum.
A lot of the film seems to be the ridiculous double standard between the sexes. Ferdinando gets the idea from the trial of a woman who killed her husband for cheating on her, with the gun he gave her for that purpose if he ever dishonored her. But contrary to what the penal code says, she got 8 years. Ferdinando's father, a dissolute gambler responsible for the family's decline, routine harasses their servant girl, and everyone tells her it's her fault he pinches her butt and tries to force his way into her room at night.
When Rosalina does finally run off with her old flame, the Church decries how movies like La Dolce Vita (which is screened in town during the film, to much acclaim among the dudes) bring about such moral decay. But the entire town is giving Ferdinando the side-eye because he hasn't yet hunted down his wife and murdered her. (He botched his original plan and is playing things out so that, when he does kill her, his attorney will be able to argue he cracked under the strain of all the social disapproval.)
I assume this was meant to be a commentary on Italian society, but it seems like it could describe a lot of places, including the United States today. There is one funny bit where a prospective Communist Party candidate is speaking to the people in town about how this whole thing relates to the issue of female emancipation and solidarity. He asks the men assembled what they should call her, and just looks so dismayed when the men sharply retort, "Whore!"
Man clearly did not know his constituency.
Credit to Marcello Mastroianni, who plays Ferdinando with this perpetual hangdog expression. he always looks a little forlorn or lost, shoulders slightly hunched, neck craned forward a bit. You can just tell he's bemoaning his fate to still be married to the same woman after 12 years, when he wants to be with a girl less than half his age. He projects the air of a man with his head up his ass to an impressive degree. His self-absorption, his cruel indifference to anyone, even those expressing concern for him, it really makes you want to punch him repeatedly in the face.
I didn't expect a happy ending. This is a European film, not an American one. Ferdinando was not going to show up to kill Rosalina, only to find she and her lover had conspired to kill him. Nor was he going to have a change of heart and realize he did love his wife. I hoped that he'd get a longer sentence than he expected, or at least that his young lover would have found another by the time he was paroled, but no dice.
No, his apparent punishment is that his now 19 year old bride is fooling around behind his back. Which is a wholly unsatisfying conclusion. Like, yes, he's a putz who pushed his loyal wife to another man through neglect and deliberate action, who is now being cheated on by the girl he's madly in love with. But he's oblivious, so it's not actually hurting him any. If he finds out, he'll just kill her and get away with less than a three year sentence again, so how bad off is he, really?
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