Bread And Tulips

Director – Silvio Soldini

Released - March 3, 2000

Genre – Romance, Drama, Comedy

Cast –
Licia Maglietta – Rosalba Barletta
Bruno Ganz – Fernando Girasoli
Giuseppe Battiston – Costantino Caponangeli
Antonio Catarnia – Mimmo Barletta
Marina Massironi – Grazia
Felice Andreasi – fermo

Stranded at a rest stop on a family vacation, housewife Rosalba finally takes her life into her own hands. Instead of waiting for her husband and two sons to come and find her she hitchhikes her way to Venice. After missing her train home, Rosalba finds a job with a florist, and moves in with a waiter. Desperate to find Rosalba, her husband hires an amateur detective to find her. What the detective finds is a woman who has finally found love and happiness in her life.

The main character Rosalba, is an Italian housewife. She is portrayed as a ditzy woman, who is pretty much hopeless. At first I thought that this was merely character development, and that her ditzyness would be the cause of some sort of commotion later on in the film. However, as the movie progressed, Rosalba is not made out to be a silly woman. In Caterina In The Big City. Caterina’s mother who is also a housewife is portrayed in the same manner. This lead to me wonder- are Italian women stereotyped as stupid or inferior to men? What are the social norms for women in Italy? In the movie Bread and Tulips, whenever a women had an occupation other then housewife, they would introduced themselves as such, with a sense of pride in their voice. After reading the article “Gender in Italy” by David Forgacs and Robert Lumley it seemed as if Italy was struggling with the same gender issues that Americans are facing. Now, after viewing the two movies it seems as if Italy is behind America when it comes to gender equality.