Volcano, with its Stromboli-like setting, was the film AnnaMagnani made with Hollywood director William Dieterle as a defiantgesture toward Roberto Rossellini, who had transferred his personal andprofessional allegiance to Ingrid Bergman. It is a tale of cruel livesin a harsh landscape, with Magnani in an expressive performance as aprostitute sent by Neapolitan police back to the island of her birth.She is shunned by the islanders, who extend their hostility to hersister (Geraldine Brooks) and little brother (Bicycle Thief's EnzoStajola). To save her sister from the wiles of a handsome deep-sea diver(Rossano Brazzi), she commits murder in a wordless, haunting sequence.Filmed under harrowing conditions on a volcanic island, like Stromboli,Volcano weaves fascinating, documentary-like sequences of local industry(tuna fishing and pumice mining) into its picture of lives lived underthe constant threat of eruption.