[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kj3loqtmid5mwpyka80k1ge7j2x.jpg]]

''Two Women'' ("La ciociara") is a 1960 Italian film based on [[FilmOfTheBook a novel of the same name]] by Alberto Moravia.
It is directed by Creator/VittorioDeSica and stars Creator/SophiaLoren and Creator/JeanPaulBelmondo.

Loren is Cesira, a widow and mother to a pubescent girl, Rosetta, in 1943 Italy, as the Allies are slowly [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII fighting their way up the peninsula]]. After an Allied bombing raid on Rome, Cesira takes her daughter out of the city and to her hometown in the Italian hills. They are safe from bombing but the privations of war hit the countryside as well, as food grows short and the front lines slowly approach. Cesira draws attention from the village's local intellectual, Michele (Belmondo), a serious young man with socialist sympathies. A romance has just started to bloom when the fortunes of war intervene.

''Two Women'' established Sophia Loren, already world famous as a sex symbol, as a serious actress as well. It won her an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Actress, and she remains to this day one of only two women to win an acting Oscar for a performance not in English, the other being Creator/MarionCotillard for ''Film/LaVieEnRose''.

----
!!This work contains the following tropes:

* AmericaWonWorldWarII: Played straight, as an American column rolls through the village, to the delight of all the locals. Then subverted when Cesira and Rosetta have a tragic encounter with some Moroccan colonial troops fighting in the Free French ranks.
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Michele finally delivers his after a long talk about how he isn't a man because he doesn't have the courage.
* DefiledForever[=/=]FateWorseThanDeath: How Cesira herself characterizes her daughter's rape, as she screams out to a passing American jeep.
--> '''Cesira''': You ruined my little daughter forever! Now she's worse than dead. No, I'm not mad, I'm not mad! Look at her! And tell me if I am mad! Rotten crazy bastards!
* DownerEnding: Cesira and Rosetta are gang-raped. Rosetta afterwards is deeply damaged (see PromiscuityAfterRape below). Then they get word that Michele was killed by the Germans. The only note of hope is the cathartic embrace between a weeping Rosetta and Cesira as the camera zooms out.
* DrivingADesk: Done very badly when a truck driver gives mother and daughter a ride.
* FanDisservice: A peasant woman that Cesira encounters in a bombed-out town exposes her breast, and then offers them her milk, because her baby was just killed by the Germans.
* HeroicBSOD[=/=]ThousandYardStare: Rosetta disassociates for a while after she is gang-raped.
* HopeSpot: The Americans roll through town, and it seems like there will be a HappyEnding. Then Cesira and Rosetta meet tragedy on the way back to Rome.
* MaleGaze: Cesira is irritated when a man on the train looks down her blouse.
* MamaBear: Cesira is determined to protect her daughter, and stares down the Italian fascist militiaman who starts creeping on Rosetta--but she can't save Rosetta from the Moroccan soldiers.
* NumberOfObjectsTitle: Referring to the mother and daughter pair of protagonists.
* PromiscuityAfterRape: After she is gang-raped, Rosetta starts giving sexual favors to older men in return for stuff like nylons.
* SlapSlapKiss: Some arguing and sniping between Cesira and her friend Giovanni ends in sex.
* StockFootage: Quite obvious with a grainy old shot of a Luftwaffe plane that strafes the American column.
* ThoseWackyNazis: A few desperate Germans are about as evil as you'd expect soldiers of the Wehrmacht to be, dragging off Michele at gunpoint to guide them over the mountains. They kill him offscreen.
* TrainStationGoodbye: After Giovanni agrees to look after her grocery store while she's away, this trope is played straight, with Giovanni seeing Cesira and Rosetta off on the train.
* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Where Cesira keeps the bankroll she left Rome with--it's a big wad of money, but Sophia Loren had a lot of room.
* WarIsHell: Cesira and Rosetta can't escape, and suffer terribly.
* WhereDaWhiteWomenAt: One might watch the scene where Cesira and Rosetta are gang-raped by Moroccan colonial troops of the Free French Forces, and find an unpleasant racial tinge to the scene, but the rape and pillage conducted by these troops in the aftermath of the battle of Monte Cassino became notorious enough to get its own name (though there’s debates over whether it was embellished). It's called the "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate Marocchinate]]".
----