White Nights

Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) is a lonely man, new to the city and walking it alone at night, until he comes across a young woman standing on a canal bridge. Natalia (Maria Schell) is waiting there for her lover to return, and Mario stops to talk with her. Luchino Visconti, adapting Dostoevsky's 1848 story, leaves the two of them on that bridge by the canal, her eyes fixed on the water.