Whilst it is debatable whether Nights of Cabiria stands as strongly when viewed with a modern eye, it was well deserving of the Oscar it was awarded at the time, and it's certainly still a moving and interesting film. The almost ostracising Italian and mid 1900s culture pervading this world makes viewing mildly difficult to chew, and along with those those affronting and slightly discomfiting tentative shots, long, demanding looks at the camera and Signorina Cabiria's frankly… comic owl-like eyebrows it certainly doesn't feel like a modern film. The change and character of Cabiria is quite beautiful really (reflected also in the riddance and softening of those eyebrows, thank God) and this humanness carries to the modern viewer. It's slow all throughout, and the first hour or so is realistic, consistent with real life - some interesting snapshots, but mostly pointless and in the scheme of things, insignificant, happenings. It's not perfect, by any means, even grating or simply boring at times, but I was left with such a pretty feel that I couldn't move on without making a comment. The acting, old-fashioned shots, those terrible eyebrows, and how everyone yells at each other, these foreign interactions, were odd for me, part of the… not imperfection actually, but just experience I suppose. The character once again glows through, Cabiria is an unpolished gem, a human gem. I think it's worth a watch.

NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, Fellini sixth feature film, which marks that he has assertively reached the full- blown phrase in his creativity and sleight-of-hand at the age of 37, and anticipates the acme of his career, LA VOLCE VITA (1960) and 8 AND A HALF (1963). The story (with Pasolini inside the coterie as a collaborator), is a tale of woe about a roadside streetwalker Cabiria (Masina) in Rome, whose real name is Maria Ceccarelli.In the opening long shot, we see Cabiria gambols with his beau on a Sunny day in the field near a river, and quick as lightning, he grabs her handbag and pushes her into the water. Cabiria is almost drowned, the same course of events will (almost) replicate itself in the arresting culmination, this time, with another suitor, a well-groomed but greasy self-claimed accountant Oscar (Périer). Why Cabiria hasn't learn anything from her miseries? It is much easier to shoot out pointers in post- mortem, in fact, as we audience follows closely to these non-interrelated episodes of Cabiria's experiences, her wretched destiny doesn't strike more like a subjectively injudicious decision than a fusillade of flak targeting at the injustice of contemporary society and the worst of human vice.Cabiria is petite, petulant and starry-eyed, apart from a narrow escape from death thanks to her dastard boyfriend, she is perfectly content in her own achievement, her self-reliant means of earning secures her a house of her own and some savings in the bank, even during her serendipitous "one-night-stand" with a famous movie star, Alberto Lazzari (Nazzari in his Erroyl Flynn suaveness), in his palatial villa, she is not ashamed of her bog-standard house. Only when she peers from the keyhole of the star's bathroom when Alberto romantically reconciles with his trophy girlfriend Jessy (Gray), she realises there is something missing in her life.A pilgrimage with other working girls jolts her out of her hard earned fulfilment, she transforms from a non-believer to a devotee, daydreams a miracle will bestow on her. After religious epiphany, next in line is prestidigitation, Fellini cunningly alludes to the collusion between them, religion seduces a simple soul and illusion brings her the undoing. In the hypnotic performance, a cynical Cabiria unwittingly reveals herself, the inner child, a love-longing Maria Ceccarelli, which instigates Oscar, a spectator in the audience to conspire his act. Since manifestly Cabiria is not an accomplice of the magician (Silvani), then her state-of-hypnosis is indeed real, which is boldly against the common savvy, and can be perceived as a further tactic to turn realness-and-illusion topsy-turvy, with the sudden arrival of a Prince Charming, willing to marry her and doesn't want to know anything about her past, only with an ulterior motive.Giulietta Masina, what can I say, such a godsend to her hubby, a force of nature can effortlessly entice a viewer to vicariously discern and undergo her character's emotional trajectory, all the more she provoke immense sympathy along the way, the suspense-heightened final revelation is so gut-wrenching to watch yet it is completely captivating and emotive (bolstered by Nino Rota's sublimely emotionally manipulative score). What a triumphant performance, Cannes' BEST ACTRESS honour has never been so worthy!NIGHTS OF CABIRIA won BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE PICTURE in the Oscar race, a consecutive second win for Fellini after LA STRADA (1954), unlike its tragic protagonist Gesumina, also played by Masina, who succumbs to the hardship and abandonment, in the coda, Cabiria manages to squeeze a smile through her tears with a parade of people singing and dancing around her, like a phoenix back from the ash, the message is uplifting, she may be homeless and penniless, but she has a true friend Wanda (an ace Marzi, in her very naturalistic mien) to rely on, she can go on working the next day and start every from the scratch, what can not kill you only makes you stronger, girl! Such a potent feminism manifesto, one might not expect it from a Fellini's creation.

My lord, how they scream!! AHAHA I laughed so much with this movie! Of course, it's a classic, but I don't think I'll see it many times, but on its way, it worth my time. The character's naivety gets on nerves, but we know there are people like this in the world, and I can say, who never were naive in life? It could not be in the same outrageous levels of Cabiria, but anyway...Well, the final scene is the best, it demonstrate how life really is. You are there, crying, during a terrible moment in your life, when something simple as a "hello" makes you smile again, and hope come back to your life.

I have seen many great films, many films that I would have to admit are technically greater than this. But very, very few films have ever evoked such beauty and warmth than Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria". There is a certain poetry and honesty that haunts every frame in this film, and while the writing is beautiful, after the film is over you don't remember the dialogue, or even the story. You remember the moments, the faces, the images, the places where this film takes place.I have never cried during or after a movie, and I don't think I ever will. But "Nights of Cabiria" moved me as close to tears as I think any film will ever have the power to do.