Wow wow wow wow... A Special Day is special indeed. A delicate and elegant film about fascism's "accepted oppression" set in 1938 Italy, in fact on the day Hitler came to visit Rome. A national holiday, everyone races out to the parade, but our two leads have a reason to stay home. Sophia Loren is a shabby, tired housewife, one who accepts fascism's proposed values. Marcello Mastroianni is a gay subversive (but only really subversive for daring to exist) living across the courtyard in the same apartment complex. Both are playing against type, but they have such star power, it hardly matters, and though a romance would seem impossible from that precis, nevertheless something develops between them over the course of that one day. And throughout, the state propaganda blares out from the nasty concierge's radio, inescapable. One character is obviously oppressed, but so is the other, and the sad part is her realizing she is. Fascist values - which then as now must curtail the rights of women - once comforted her in her unhappy marriage, but after this one day's idyll, no longer. At the end, like the parroting myna bird that allowed for their meeting, they return to their cages. The acting is impeccable. The sepia-toned cinematography cheats us into thinking this is about the past. Great use of location. Wonderful on every level.

Very good movie. Marcello Mastroianni is very good in this movie. And I always love to see a movie with the great Sophia Loren in it.

Amazing