In the world of cinema, love and politics are almost impossible to reconcile. Roberto Rossellini's Vanina Vanini is one such example. An adaption of Stendhal's novella of the same name, the film charts the tragic romance of spoiled aristocrat Vanina Vanini and revolutionary carbonaro Pietro Missirilli. Their love is challenged by Missirilli's devotion to the cause of a unified Italy and Vanina's foolishness in taking for granted the fact that he is willing to die for his cause. Frustrated with Missirilli's frequent inattention, Vanina betrays his comrades to the authorities, naively assuming that this will free him from his political obligations and send him back into her arms. When he turns himself in to stand trial with his men, Vanina is shocked, appalled, and surprised. Missirilli's refusal of a papal pardon and Vanina's entry into a nunnery at the end cement their inability to come to terms with each others' motivations. But the main storyline is not the only evidence that love and politics don't mix in the cinema. Rossellini's stout Catholicism prevented him from demonizing the anti-revolutionary clergy. The clergy are shockingly sympathetic and empathetic to Vanina's situation, even bending over backwards to provide Missirilli with a pardon. This refusal to demonize the reactionary clergy prevents the film from being a purely political tract (at least in a Marxist sense). Instead, the focus of the film is redirected towards the central romance and Vanina’s inability to understand love that doesn’t involve romance. Rossellini's European contemporaries would have ennobled Missirilli, transforming him into a revolutionary martyr who selflessly refuses romantic love in the name of the People. By rejecting these Leftist trappings, Vanina Vanini absconds from political responsibilities in favor of a more universal, melodramatic romance. Politics are politics and romance is romance and Vanina Vanini is proof that never the twain shall meet.
7/10
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