Luchino Visconti's Ossessione is one of those incredibly important movies that no one (outside of film studies departments) seems to have heard about, and it's important for all sorts of contradictory reasons.
An uncredited adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Visconti's 1942 Italian production predates and predicts the whole film noir cycle that was to follow a few years later in Hollywood. Perhaps even more significantly, Ossessione is often called the very first filmic example of neorealism, that groundbreaking movement that valued humanity and authenticity above all else, and that included such masterpieces as The Bicycle Thief and Rome: Open City.
Ossessione is not exactly a neorealist film, but, like all such movies, it transformed a low budget from a liability into an effective method for breaking the bounds of studio artificiality, ultimately rendering a vision of life as something that could only be called art. Visconti was so successful at crafting a portrait of life as it really looked (albeit a portrait heated up by the lurid doings of the Cain-inspired script) that he succeeded in engaging the wrath of none other than Benito Mussolini himself. Mussolini took one look at the film's cramped, dirty apartments, sweaty couples and less than perfect behavior, and declared This is not Italy! Ossessione was promptly banned and was not seen or heard of again for many years.
You probably know what's coming next. Fast forward to 2002 A.D. (After DVD), and to the digitally immaculate, complete and uncensored DVD edition of Visconti's pulp masterpiece that has suddenly burst upon the world. For the millions of viewers who have heard of this incredibly important film but have never seen it, the biggest revelation about Ossessione is bound to be what a terrifically entertaining movie this is.
Somehow the word important generally conjures up images of a test being given after the movie is watched, but that's not at all the case here. Ossessione works on a lot of levels — it's a first class history lesson and still the remarkable social document that so infuriated Mussolini — but, perhaps above all else, it's an awful lot of fun.
Anyone familiar with the famous 1946 Lana Turner/John Garfield noir will instantly recognize the film's tale of lust, murder, greed and guilt, despite Visconti's transposing the locale to Italy's Po Delta. Clara Calamai and Massimo Girotti are significantly earthier and more believable than their Hollywood counterparts, and they generate some serious sparks as the adulterous couple who scheme to knock off the woman's husband.
The film's visual beauty is extraordinary, and more in keeping with the inspired imagery of Visconti's later work (Rocco and His Brothers and even Senso) than with the often formulaic chiaroscuro of film noir or the sometimes self-effacing documentary-like visual approach of neorealism. There are no extras on the Image Entertainment DVD of Ossessione, but the film itself is the show here, and what a show it is. Ossessione looks pretty darned good for a 60-year-old movie that's been hidden away and butchered over the decades — the picture is sharp, with reasonably strong blacks and nice details throughout. There are some stray markings here and there but, on the whole, the print seen is surprisingly damage-free and, best of all, presented in all its uncut, 135-minute glory. Grab it.
—Lance Goldenberg 
This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2002.