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(Some spoilers) I have not read the James M. Cain novel (`The Postman Always Rings Twice') on which this movie was based, so I cannot compare this film version to it, but I have seen and love the 1946 US version (also entitled `Postman').
Even better is this gem from Italy, which, I have read, was `mutilated' in editing because of too many blatant references to the Fascist regime. Well, no matter  what is left is a fine piece of cinema, apparently the forerunner of the neo-realist movement in film-making. One can certainly see why  despite whatever harsh editing did go on, a pervading sense of societal and cultural, as well as personal oppression remains, hanging heavy over the protagonists, who therefore face many limits in life.
Consider Gino, the young drifter, not well educated, unemployed, and resorting to stowing away, stealing and conning people in order to get by, his one pair of shoes so threadbare as to be virtually useless.
In Giovanna, he sees a way out, yet he should have kept going, as Giovanna is oppressed by her loveless marriage to an older man with some money, her job (working at the trattoria for her husband, slaving away behind the bar and in the kitchen), and her sex. In the past, she had limited options, and decided to marry the restaurant/gas station owner (Giuseppe Bregana, played by Juan de Landa) anyway, knowing that he would not make her happy. She tells Gino that she feels sick every time Bregana touches her.
On the pretext of helping Bregana fix his car and sending him into the village to buy a needed part (which he has in fact pocketed), Gino wins Bregana's favor (promising also to fix the broken water pump  water symbolizing life, or lack thereof) and is left alone with Giovanna. They immediately start a heated, passionate, yet volatile love affair.
Gino soon feels stifled by the relationship, and feels the need to move on again when Giovanna proposes that they dispose of her husband. Wanting no part of it, Gino leaves town on a train ride that he cannot afford, kindly paid for him by another gypsy-type man named Spagnolo, a fellow train passenger. To Gino, Spagnolo represents a sort of freedom, and they become friends (Spagnolo also symbolizes Gino's morality and conscience), traveling and finding work at a carnival together. Finally Gino has steady employment. To his dismay (he is not yet over his love for Giovanna), a month has passed when Bregana and his wife go to the carnival and Bregana persuades Gino to go `back home' to live and work with them again, as he is handy to have around.
Too weak-willed to resist, knowing this will reunite he and Giovanna, Gino agrees and goes back to stay with the couple. After a while he gives in to Gina's demands to get rid of her husband. Once the evil deed is done, Giovanna becomes more cold-blooded than ever, seeming to have very little conscience, while guilt and shame eat away at Gino for hurting a man who never did him any harm. As much as he wants to leave her  he does again briefly, they are now inextricably linked, and must face the consequences.
I liked the way the Spagnolo character came back into Gino's life to act as a judge of his misdeeds  that was very good, and interesting, adding another dimension to the story.
While the '46 U.S. version with Lana Turner and John Garfield gets a bit lost in a quagmire of peripheral characters, especially the cops and the lawyers, Ossessione does well to concentrate much more on the psychological effects of the crime on the lovers alone. This gives the final outcome even more potency, and makes a powerful statement reinforcing the helplessness inherent in the society in which the characters must live.
A minor quibble: The amount of time (hardly any) that elapses before undying love is pronounced by the lovers, how quickly they kill the husband (there is no botched first attempt as in the U.S. version); Gino's very quick-to-escalate relationship with the dancer/hooker  they quickly profess their love as well, and she is willing to risk a great deal for a man she just met!  all rather unrealistic, isn't it? I found this time-frame problem quite distracting  it made me think that I must have missed something somewhere. Otherwise, well worth the viewer's time. The acting and direction were both uniformly good throughout. Recommended.


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