A fantastic character and a story you can feel. The two leads both give deeply touching performances as the misfits drawn together. Each possesing traits the other simply cannot grasp, but still hunger for. A strange and uniquely powerful cinematic relationship that is constantly compelling, gritty, and beautiful. A film of crushing sadness, purpose driven confusion, romantic longing, regret, and loneliness. A great, lingering tragedy.

I'm one of the few not in love with Chaplin's Tramp persona so Masina's equivalent did little for me. The bad thing though is she mixes something I'm not desperately keen on, and that doesn't really work in a sound film where everyone else is speaking and acting normally, with oodles and oodles of sulking. And the crying sounded like when my dog whines! Still there's plenty of good stuff - Fellini brings a lot of life to the film, Quinn is excellent and I loved the light magical realism touches.

Between this and 8 1/2, I'd rather take the latter, although I can appreciate Fellini's ambitions.

The cinematography is nice, but the film is generally very unappealing. No characters are likeable and the music is annoying. With a main character whose behavior makes little sense, we are only distanced from others that are more interesting. If it was indeed intended to be broad metaphor, it still doesn't work because so little happens in the film that there's no real dialectic to speak of. I know everyone is supposed to love this movie, but I thought it was a real snooze.

There were parts where I should have been bubbling with joy, but I felt detached. Fellini's in top form, balancing play with economy, and the script endures translation relatively well. Masina radiates child-like warmth, and Quinn's performance says so much with so little. What was the problem? The story didn't reach me until the very end, and by then it was too late to form any lasting impressions. I'm all for a cherished memory, but I need something I can take back with me.

Equating life with performance, La Strada simultaneously revels in the ups and downs of existence, earnestly embracing the quirks and expressions that distinguishes human life. Consequently, it epitomises what cinema is all about: peering into the heart and soul of our performance in his portrait of fatal union amidst Earth's circus, Fellini achieves brilliance -- the kind of mournful-but-revelatory film-making that anticipates Troch, Smith and Cronenberg.

tragic

Earthly sad.

50

Deeply engaging, moving and sad, La Strada is one of these films that leaves you thinking about it for hours (or years).

This is usually read as a symbolic struggle for the Soul (Gelsimina) between the Body (Zampano) and the Mind (The Fool). If that sounds pretentious, it's because it is. The joys in Fellini's film are not to be found in such high-flown concepts but in his passages of lyricism and in the stylized performances of his actors.

The two main characters were dependent on each other for different reasons maybe even they didn't understand. The acting in this film is subtle and complex. It's great how relatable both of the characters are to everyday people. This is my favorite Fellini film as it is grounded in personal tragedy but at no point does it feel melodramatic or dishonest with the audience.

Probably one of Fellini's most moving pictures which is very well paced. Quinn is excellent as the brutal street performer while Masina is just adorable with her clownish and innocent behavior. 26/10/2010

The performances of this film are really good, but the story line dont caught my attention, and it is this highly acclaimed film, so I expected much more.

I. Don't. Like. Gypsies.

The 65 is for Quinn... I could've given this movie a 40.

Devastating. I saw this on a list of Depressing Films and thought "how could this film be depressing? It looks so joyous". But it's all that joy and wonder throughout the film that makes the gut-punch ending all the more devastating and depressing.