The Road a Year Long, aka "The Year-Long Road", is a 1958 film from Italy directed by Giuseppe De Santis.
The setting is the fictional peasant village of Zagora, somewhere in a mountainous region of Italy. The village is not doing well. None of the men have work and really the only thing keeping them from starvation is the handouts from the few people in town that are doing well, the men that own the large farms in the region.
One day a villager named Emil, along with his wife Agneza and their two children, go out to the rock-strewn trail that is the only "road" into town. The whole family takes their tools and starts working on the path, starting to make it into an actual road.
The menfolk of the town, who were just sitting around the square doing nothing (no work) are puzzled. They assume that Emil has been hired to work on the road, so, themselves desperately needing work, they join in. It turns out that Emil has not been hired to work on the road and no one is paying him; his idea was simply to get all the other men in town working. Soon enough the mayor comes back from a trip and tells everybody that there is no road project and they aren't going to be paid anything. But by then the project has acquired a life of its own, as the whole village starts to work on building a decent road.
Tropes:
- And the Adventure Continues: The film ends with the others noticing Bernardo walking off, tools in hand. They ask what he's doing and he says that they have a road into town, but they still need roads into the woods and down into the valley and all sorts of places, and he's going to start working on them.
- As You Know: Agneza says "You know what the law says" when telling Emil what he obviously already knows, that it is illegal to perform public improvements like road building without a permit.
- Battle in the Rain: Averted. It is pouring rain when Lorenzo, who can't stand the tension anymore after David found out about the affair with Katarina, confronts David. He hands David a knife and says "Kill me!", as the rain continues to fall. David is still very angry, but he observes that a moment of anger can get you 30 years in jail, so he hands the knife back to Lorenzo and walks off.
- The Big Damn Kiss: The resolution of the romance between Big Mouth and Katarina. After she refuses his sexual advances and throws him out of the house, he starts rebuilding her house so she can move out of his. He observes that someone has been undoing the work he's been doing, and eventually catches Katarina disassembling a wall he started. He confronts her, she asks why he wants her to leave his house, and they kiss.
- Book Ends: In the first scene after the credits are done rolling, the men are sitting around the town square, loafing. At the end, they are in the same place, doing the same thing, but this time they are looking with satisfaction at their newly-built road.
- Capitalism Is Bad: It's subtle, but the message is there. The rich landowners in town refuse to do anything to help the poor folks. The poor citizens, for their part, band together to build a road—whereupon the rich people, who don't want to give up the land that they would have to donate, have the men arrested. This film was actually produced with money from communist Yugoslavia after no one in Italy would back it.
- Dramatic Sit-Down: The women in town, enraged at how their men have been arrested, protest by pulling their children out of school. The schoolteacher, who is the main authority in town after the mayor, heavily sits in an empty desk as the kids file out.
- Erotic Eating: Susanna takes this to a new level with erotic sewing, as she ostentatiously licks the thread she's putting through a needle, as Lorenzo watches.
- Gray Rain of Depression: The low point comes when the greedy landowners of the region, who don't want to pay for the road, have all the men arrested. The women, now without their menfolk, stand in the pouring rain and watch disconsolately as a single policeman patrols the unfinished road.
- Ignored Confession: A drunk Emil, who is having second thoughts about the whole "trick the town into building a road" plan, tells Big Mouth that he made it all up and in fact no one will get paid. But Big Mouth is just as drunk and doesn't pay Emil any attention, so the townsfolk don't find out until the mayor gets back from a trip.
- Italian Neorealism: The peasants of a mountain village, tired of being out of work and on the ragged edge of starvation, build themselves a road.
- Italians Talk with Hands: They really do, starting with the opening credits sequence where two men with carts argue over who has to make way to cross a one-cart bridge.
- Left Hanging: We never do find out the fate of Katarina's husband, who left for America six years ago and eventually stopped writing. She decides she's had enough of waiting and at the end is together with Big Mouth.
- Love Triangle: Susanna, bored and discontent with her marriage to David, enters into an affair with handsome young Lorenzo. Things get ugly when David finds out.
- Mood Whiplash: The scene where the men working on the road confront Emil, after they find out the truth, devolves into a silly brawl on the road. Things turn deadly serious when the brawl results in young Ivo, Emil's son, getting knocked off the edge and falling into the ravine, where he is badly hurt.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The film ends with Bernardo, Angela, and their daughter, walking off, as they're starting to build a new road.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The boisterous fellow who sort of informally takes command of the project is only ever called "Big Mouth".
- Parental Marriage Veto: For unspecified reasons, Rosa's mother won't let her marry Lorenzo, and instead sends her off to the city to work as a domestic. This leads Lorenzo to get into a messy Love Triangle in Rosa's absence.
- Perpetual Poverty: It is years after the war is over and nothing is any better in the little village, as no one has any work. That's why the men jump at the chance to build the road, first simply to earn money, and second in hopes that a decent road into town will encourage more commercial traffic.
- Refuge in Audacity: Emil's idea? Go out one day and start building a road, on the assumption that the other menfolk will see him, think that he's got work, and join in. It works, and by the time the town finds out the truth they are so focused on getting the road built that they keep going on the assumption they can get the government to pay them later.
- Serenade Your Lover: Katarina has taken up residence in Big Mouth's house—hers having been demolished for the road—but she rebuffs his sexual advances and kicks him out of the house. He demands his guitar, so she hands it to him through a window. He immediately starts singing her a love song.
- Sexy Sweater Girl: The curvy Katarina wears some really tight sweaters.
- Would Hit a Girl: David smacks Susanna in the face several times after finding out she has been cheating on him.
