Ingrid Bergman's films with Roberto Rossellini remain some of her least known in America. However, they contain fascinating performances by the actress, working in collaboration with the director for whom she had such respect that, after seeing his Open City and Paisan, she initiated their association. In Europa '51, she portrays a well-off housewife who leads a frivolous life until her child, thinking that she has lost interest in him, takes his own life. In her grief, she undergoes a moral conversion and dedicates herself to working for the good of others; her husband seeks to have her committed. Jose Luis Guarner writes, “Europa '51 is Rossellini's most paradoxical film; one has to look for its significance in its images rather than in its ideas.... It is quite astonishing how a film like this, passionate to the point of indecency, manages to advance steadfastly toward the extreme bareness of the conclusion, which...has an austerity worthy of Dreyer....”