Senso

Senso (1954) is Luchino Visconti's lush historical drama, available to watch online on iFILM. Venice, 1866 — the last stretch of Austrian occupation. Partisan cells are organizing in the shadows while Verdi plays in the opera house. Alida Valli and Farley Granger star.

Countess Livia Serpieri is connected to the resistance by family and by conviction — until she meets Austrian Lieutenant Franz Mahler at a performance and loses her bearings completely. She diverts funds meant for the partisans, covers for a man she knows is using her, and dismantles her own life piece by piece in the process.

Shot in vivid Technicolor at a time when Italian neorealism still dominated, Senso was Visconti's deliberate turn toward operatic excess. The beauty of the frame makes the moral collapse hit harder. Stream Senso (1954) online on iFILM.