Environment, struggle, isolation: An ecocritical look at Italian and Japanese cinema after the Second World War

The article proposes a comparative discussion from an ecocritical perspective of two Italian and two Japanese films produced between the end of the Second World War and the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962): La terra trema by Visconti (1948), Stromboli by Rossellini (1950), Hadaka no shima by Shindō (1960) and Suna no onna by Teshigahara (1964). The analysis focuses on the relationship between the filmic representation of a harsh natural environment and the hardships of the characters who interact with it. This representation is not limited to an oppositional function; it is rather a layered model of the agency of the environment towards humans, and vice versa. The idea of nature proposed in these films contributes to the further isolation of characters who are already on the fringe of society, offering a metaphor for the struggle to define our place in the surrounding environment and society.