An earthy, thought-provoking film, `La Strada' is one that will linger on sweetly in your mind's eye; the images and impressions it creates may, with time, dissolve-- but the essence of it will remain with you always. For once Fellini has touched you, it is forever.

It's the cardinal work of his career, the turning point from his Italian neorealist roots to the florid imagery and surreal narrative style that has come to be known as "Felliniesque." For skeptics who deplore the self-indulgence and grotesquerie of his later films, La Strada is the career high point preceding his ...

Gelsomina, an apparently somewhat simple-minded, dreamy young woman, learns that her sister Rosa has died after going on the road with the strongman Zampanò. Now the man has returned a year later to ask her mother if Gelsomina will take Rosa's place.