The Off-Road Girl

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The Off-Road Girl
Directed by Luigi Scattini
Screenplay by Leo Chiosso
Gustavo Palazio
Starring Zeudi Araya
Luc Merenda
CinematographyAntonio Borghesi
Edited byLuigi Scattini
Music by Piero Umiliani
Release date
  • 1972 (1972)
Language Italian

The Off-Road Girl (Italian : La ragazza fuoristrada, also spelled La ragazza fuori strada) is a 1973 Italian romantic drama film directed by Luigi Scattini.

Contents

Cast

Production

The film was a co-production between Filmarpa and P.A.C. [1] It was mainly shot in Ravenna. [2]

Reception

Antonio Guastella from Nocturno praised the film for focusing on the topic of racism in the Italian society, a non-obvious choice for the time especially in Italian genre films, and described it as "a Danse Macabre of small-town atmospheres and moods, which, despite its stereotopical nature [...], is well crafted and delivered with enjoyable gusto". [2] La Stampa film critic Achille Valdata noted: "Entrusted to an actress who is still immature, though very promising and full of an instinctive charge of sympathy, the drama does not always come across as thorough and persuasive. The corrupt provincial society is depicted too crudely, so that it becomes bogus, as well as the psychological transitions are, in general, rather approximate". [3]

Soundtrack

In his analysis of Piero Umiliani's film scores, Kristopher Spencer described Umiliani's score for this film as well as for other Zeudi Araya's vehicles La ragazza dalla pelle di luna and The Body , as "a satisfying mélange of funky grooves , sensual ballads , jazz - rock abstractions and fun-in-the-sun capypso ditties". [4] Araya performs two songs of the soundtrack, "Oltre l'acqua del fiume" and "Maryam". [1] The soundtrack also include an Ornella Vanoni cover version of Bruno Lauzi's "Ritornerai", which was later also used in Nanni Moretti's The Mass Is Ended . [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Giusti, Marco (1999). Dizionario dei film italiani stracult. Sperling & Kupfer. p. 634. ISBN   8820029197.
  2. 1 2 Guastella, Antonio (April 2005). "La ragazza fuoristrada". Nocturno Dossier. 35: 21.
  3. Valdata, Achille (12 September 1973). "Il film del giorno: La bella etiope". La Stampa (in Italian). No. 212. p. 11. Retrieved 5 March 2025.
  4. Spencer, Kristopher (10 January 2014). Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979: A Critical Survey by Genre. McFarland. pp. 117–8. ISBN   978-0-7864-5228-6.