Nearly 40 years after the film was made, the parable of redemption hidden beneath an apparently picaresque plot had become even more compelling and lyrical.” “La Strada is the movie that perhaps I loved the most.” “The theme for Fellini's spiritual fable is that everyone has a purpose in the universe.

His vignettes fill his movie with beauty, sadness, humor and understanding. Although there are English subtitles and the voices of the Messrs. Quinn and Basehart have been dubbed into Italian, "La Strada" needs no fuller explanations. It speaks forcefully, poetically and often movingly in a universal language.

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.