ne of Italian Neorealism’s last and deepest sighs, with Carlo Battisti as a retired civil servant, impoverished and isolated trying to survive in a society that has dispensed with him. His only relationship is with his beloved dog, and when it runs away the effect on him—on us watching—is devastating. Cesare Zavattini, the writer who defined Neorealism as much as its directors did, never wrote more simply and directly and De Sica realizes his work with perfect clarity.—R.S.