La Strada (1954), which literally means the road, is an Italian drama film, directed by Federico Fellini, depicting a meaningful journey in the lives of Gelsomina, a simple young woman and a brutish strongman Zampanò, who bought her from her mother and took her with him on the road. It is the first film that can be termed as entirely Felliniesque and the bridge between the postwar Italian neorealism which shaped Fellini and the visionary autobiographical fanciful display which followed. With this pathfinding and breakthrough film, Federico Fellini launched both himself and his wife Giulietta Masina, who portrayed the role of Gelsomina, to international stardom. La Strada has the eternal charm, unsullied purity and timeless resonance of a fable and remains one of cinema’s most exquisitely moving visions of humanity struggling to survive in the face of the cruelties of life.

Set in post-war Italy, La Strada tells the story of a simple, dreamy and somewhat neglected young woman, Gelsomina, who lives a quiet life with her mother and three sisters.

However, her sheltered life becomes shattered when a travelling showman, Zampano, returns after a year to inform that her sister Rosa has died after going on the road with him and proposes to pay her mother to take Gelsomina with him as a replacement for Rosa to act as his performing companion and sidekick. The helpless poor mother, with other mouths to feed, accepts the proposal in return of 10,000 lire and a few kilos of food and her reluctant daughter tearfully departs the same day.

Zampanò makes his living as a street performer, who entertains the interested crowds by exhibiting his feats of strength by breaking a chain bound tightly across his chest and then passing the hat for tips. Living in a ramshackle caravan pulled by a motorcycle, he teaches Gelsomina a drum roll and trumpet and makes her dance a bit, as part of his introduction and clown for the audience. Gradually, she develops a feeling of tenderness for him, although despite her willingness to please him, he intimidates her, forces himself upon her and treats her cruelly at times. She wants to impress Zampano and make him love her as she loves him, but he remains violently unresponsive to her advances.

He treats her harshly, even beats her, when she tries to run away. But she felt betrayed when he goes off with another woman one evening, leaving Gelsomina abandoned in the street.

Feeling betrayed and thus insulted, Gelsomina finally leaves Zampanò, making her way into a town, where she watches the act of another street entertainer, Il Matto, the fool, a talented artist and clown, walking along a thin wire. However, Zampanò finds her there and forcibly takes her back, but both of them join a ragtag travelling circus where Il Matto already works. Although Il Matto habitually teases the strongman on every opportunity without any apparent instigation or motivation, his light heart and kindness are just opposite to the bitterness and violence of Zampanò.

Finally, one day when Il Matto intentionally drenched Zampanò with a pail of water, Zampanò chased him with an open knife in his hand, although he was caught before any mishap. However, Zampanò was briefly jailed for his misdeed, while both of

them were fired from the travelling circus.

Before Zampanò's release from prison, the fool imparts his philosophy of life to Gelsomina and tells her that everyone and everything in the world has a purpose in life. Gelsomina receives a small jolt of hope when he tells her that when every pebble on this earth has a purpose, maybe she will also make something of herself one day. He also proposes that there are alternatives to her servitude to Zampanò. Even the nuns, who offered shelter to the pair for a night, invited Gelsomina to join them, as they could see a kindred spiritual seeker in her.

However, after being released, Zampanò again spotted Gelsomina, continuing his life as usual and one day, they come upon the fool fixing a flat tire on an empty stretch. As the two men begin to fight, as usual, Gelsomina watches in horror, the strongman brutally punches the clown on his head several times, causing the head of the fool to hit on the corner of his car's roof. While Zampanò walks back to his caravan with a warning to the fool to keep his mouth shut in the future, Il Matto complains that his watch is broken and stumbles into the field and dies.

While the brutal incident shattered Gelsomina's spirit, Zampanò coolly hid the body of the fool and pushed his car off the road to burst into flames. However, it shocked Gelsomina to the extreme, made her apathetic and she kept on murmuring, as if to remind herself, that the fool was hurt. After making a few small and futile attempts to console her, the strongman presumed that probably she would no longer be helpful for him to earn a living. He, therefore, took the first opportunity to abandon her while she was asleep, leaving some clothes, money and his trumpet for her.

Some years later, Zampanò fortuitously overhears a woman singing a particular tune, which Gelsomina often played. The tune makes him inquisitive and learns from the woman that her father came across Gelsomina on the beach and kindly took her home. However, unfortunately, she had wasted away and finally died. Somehow, the story made the heartless Zampanò upset. He got drunk, got involved in an unnecessary fight with the locals and ultimately started to wander on the beach, where he broke down in tears.

Federico Fellini was introduced to Anthony Quinn by his wife Giulietta Masina, while both of them were working on a film and immediately Fellini was convinced that he would be the right choice to play the role of Zampanò. However, even though Fellini insisted on Quinn for accepting the role, he was initially dismissed by the actor because he had no idea of Fellini and his work. But shortly thereafter, one day in the evening, after watching his I Vitelloni (1953) with Ingrid Bergman and her husband, director Roberto Rossellini, Quinn became pleasantly surprised by the work of the somewhat unknown Italian and was pleased to accept his offer. However, Federico Fellini had to face an extraordinarily difficult time for finding producers for his proposed film. Several of the producers who felt that the script was promising, also backed out by his insistence that his wife, Giulietta Masina should play the role of Gelsomina. Finally, he began filming without having any officially signed producer and the film was shot in desolate locations between villages and flinty roads to reflect the harshness and moral aridity of Zampanò, together with the soothing relief of the sweet, forgiving Gelsomina.

In La Strada, Fellini reminds all that the iron fist of the male rules supreme. Poor Gelsomina is utterly helpless against the harsh treatment of male abuse, even when she tried to escape from his mighty clutches, she ended up returning to him. Even, when Gelsomina wants to impress Zampano and wishes him to love her as she loves him, he remains violently unresponsive to her advances. However, the film also highlights that human companionship is above everything, even when it is based on psychological abuse. It is preferable to loneliness, even when hard-sought physical contact is more often a slap than it is an assuring kiss.

La Strada, described by many critics as the first masterpiece of Fellini, is a film of despair and optimism, cruelty and salvation. La Strada is a road movie, in which Anthony Quinn appeared as the travelling strongman Zampanò with his toweringly physical performance, while Masina appearing as Gelsomina, represents both the childlike wonder and heartbreaking despair of a young woman. The beautiful film, described by the American Film Institute as one of the most influential films ever made, won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1957, while Giulietta Masina, playing the role of Gelsomina, earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for the Best Foreign Actress.