In La Strada the road ends at the water, the place where the road began. Gelsomina is no longer with Zampanò. He has lost her like he lost Rosa. No other human beside him, he is alone with the sound of the waves licking at the shore.

His vignettes fill his movie with beauty, sadness, humor and understanding. Although there are English subtitles and the voices of the Messrs. Quinn and Basehart have been dubbed into Italian, "La Strada" needs no fuller explanations. It speaks forcefully, poetically and often movingly in a universal language.

La strada (The Road) is a 1954 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini and co-written by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano.

A melding of the neorealism in Fellini's past with the fable elements that were to dominate his future, La Strada is basically a three-character drama about the loneliness and the elusiveness of love. Using the grit of neorealism to combat any excessive sentimentality, Fellini...