This moving slice of life has several acts and moves like an opera, but the scenes are "neo-realistic" in the best sense.
All of Visconti's actors are from the Sicilian fishing village, but they were not acting--just portraying their lives. You care about these real people!
Family is everything--and it survives despite the buffeting by the storms, the stranglehold of the oligarchical wholesalers, and shortsightedness of the townspeople. We see the exploitation of the fishermen vividly and how most accept it as "God's will."
It also brings to mind the old joke: What is the difference between capitalism and communism? Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and communism is just the reverse.
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