Le notti bianche (White Nights 1957), directed by the Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti, is an exquisite adaptation of a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky of the same name, that portrays the tale of two restless souls into a ravishing black-and-white dream and play into the idea of longing as well as unfulfilled love, as the man tries to understand what the unknown young woman is going through, as he is in love with her. Set in a winter Venice, far from the hustle and bustle of the city’s summer months, Le notti bianche, a cinematic gem, follows the nocturnal wanderings and romantic pursuits of a loner, named Mario, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who meets a young woman, Natalia, portrayed by Maria Schell, on a canal bridge claiming to wait for a former lover whom she believes will return.

The film starts with the scene of Mario, a lonely young man, new in the town, wrapped in a long dark overcoat, gets off a bus, breaks away from the crowd and sets off through a labyrinth of dark, misty and narrow streets, followed for a time by a wandering dog, symbolic of his own solitary existence, when he spots the silhouette of a young woman, Natalia crying on a bridge, spanning over a canal. As he stops, wondering what to do, Natalia notices him and starts to run away in apprehension, only to be sexually harassed by two creeps on a motorcycle. However, Mario intervened to them away and attempts to start a conversation with her.

Although she was reluctant to speak much about her, she listens politely, agrees that Mario can walk her home and also promises to meet him the following night.

Surprisingly, the next night, when Mario appears on the bridge to meet her, Natalia again initially runs away to avoid him, but explained later that she did not want him to think that she was a cheap woman to meet a strange man. She then reveals that she is waiting for someone on the bridge, who suddenly left, but promised her to come back in a year.

While she allows Mario to keep her company while she waits, she slowly opens up to tell him all about her life. She tells him that she is Natalia, daughter of a formerly well-to-do carpet merchant, but unfortunately, both her parents ran off separately, leaving her under the custody of her overprotective, but nearly-blind, grandmother and that they make a living by repairing carpets and taking in lodgers. At that time, a dashing man rented a room in her grandmother's house and eventually they fell in love. He took her to the opera, pledged his love, but suddenly, due to reasons unknown, he left before telling her he is unable to marry her right away but would return to meet her a year later, on this bridge. But although a year has already gone, and she has not received any news from him since he left, she has been coming on the bridge over the canal regularly every day at ten, awaiting his arrival.

After patiently hearing her story, Mario remarks that she is being naive, but Natalia says that she knows that the man, the ex-tenant, is back in town, but she just does not want to make the first move. She also chides Mario that his looks are like a lovelorn suitor, but after learning everything about her, he must not fall in love with her.

However, when Mario suggests she write the tenant a letter, she hands one to him that she has already written, and requests Mario to find and deliver the letter to him. Ridiculously, even after knowing Mario’s feelings for her, Natalia believes that he will deliver the letter for her. However, as she leaves for home, Mario tears up the letter and throws it in the canal.

Next day, while walking around the town, Mario meets Natalia, who reports that although she waited impatiently for her ex-lover, he never arrived to keep his promise. Mario did not know, whether he should be happy or sad at the news, but he knew that he is already in love with the woman, who loves another man. However, he invites Natalia to go to a club to pass the time, which she agrees, even persuades him to have fun. They danced until it was past ten, when she runs to the bridge and tells Mario to leave so her lover does not see him with her, while Mario, the dejected lover, walks off. However, after a misunderstanding with a prostitute, he winds up back by the bridge and meets Natalia, who reports that the man did not show up, when Mario confesses that he did not deliver the letter. Nevertheless, Mario becomes surprised, when, even after his confession, Natalia thanks him for sparing her from being humiliated and admits that she is ready to forget the man she once loved. Her words make Mario filled with joy and he takes the opportunity to express his love for her and she responds by saying that probably a day would come, when she would love him. As they wander around town, it begins to snow, which they enjoy wholeheartedly in the warmth of togetherness, caught up in the romance of the situation, and finally return to the bridge, when Natalia notices that the man standing on it is no other than the ex-tenant, her lover.

That was a crucial moment for Natalia, as she has to make a choice, whether to stay on one side or cross the bridge to another. Finally, she listened to her heart and without any hesitation, runs to the man, only to come back immediately to Mario to tell him that she realises she still loves the man on the bridge. Although it was a shock for Mario, who for the last three nights, accompanied her, tried to pacify and distract her, danced with her, because he fell for her, he expressed his regret for trying to create doubt in her mind about her love and also thanked her for the moments of happiness she brought for him. After that, while the ecstatic Natalia walks away with the tenant, Mario is left all alone to wander the streets aimlessly.

Le notti bianche (White Nights 1957), depicting one of the most beautiful, but melancholic and timeless love story, directed by Luchino Visconti, one of the pioneers of the new realism in Italian Cinema, was shot in Rome on an elaborate set that recreated the streets, stores, waterways and monuments of Livorno, instead of a real location, to make it look as if fake. In the film, Natalia’s reality is clouded over by her dreams, while the film seems to be hovering between a world of reality and the world of dreams, just like the young man on the bridge, creating a dilemma about dream and reality. While Natalia chases her dream, Mario falls in love with her, moved by her faith, purity and goodness, and though she welcomes Mario, she remains faithful to her ideal, which ignites and inspires Mario to love her. However, with a choice between reality and romantic madness, the characters in the film choose the latter, making it a typical Visconti film.

Le notti bianche (White Nights) is not so much a neo realist film, but rather a dreamlike beautiful story of a fairy tale romance and disappointment. However, although it received positive reviews from critics and audiences, it was edged out of BAFTA and Oscars contention by Federico Fellini’s 1957 film Nights of Cabiria, but was awarded the Silver Lion at the 1957 Venice Film Festival, while the Bengali film Aparajito, directed by Satyajit Ray, won the Golden Lion Award