Bread and tulips

Pane e tulipani or Bread and Tulips directed by Silvio Soldini is an Italian film that follows a middle aged housewife Rosalba on her journey of rediscovery. Throughout this film Rosalba transforms from a lonely mistreated mother and wife, into a woman filled with passion and love. This transformation reflects the social changes occurring in Italy during this time. Women started taking control of their lives and ultimately becoming more independent and self reliant. This film gives hope to all ages, specifically targeting middle aged men and women showing that changes can happen at any time.
The film starts off with Rosalba and her family on their yearly vacation. When seeing the family interact with each other it is quite clear that Rosalba is ignored and mistreated. When at a rest stop Rosalba drops her wedding band down the toilet which symbolizes the destruction of her marriage. Of course after fishing the wedding band out of the toilet time has passed and her uncaring family leaves Rosalba behind completely forgetting about her existence. Hurt and confused she resolves to wait for her family convinced they will realize she was missing and come back immediately. To her misfortune her family fails to realize she was missing until they are hours away from the rest stop. Her husband Mimmo then starts to blame Rosalba for being left behind, claiming that she wanders and misplaces herself. Rosalba decided to find her own way home instead of waiting for her unloving family and from there starts a journey that will forever change her life.
After hitchhiking and meeting many interesting people Rosalba realizes her desire to visit the city of Venice. She decided that after all the issues with her family she deserves a vacation of her own. Venice was everything she expected and more, she automatically falls in love with the city as we see throughout this film. She eventually wanders and find an old motel to spend the night with the intent to return home in the