Road to Salina

Jonas is a young drifter wandering the road to Salina through the desert. He stops at a deserted filling station. Mara, who owns it, takes him for her son Rocky, who disappeared four years ago. Jonas feels sorry for the woman and does not correct her; he stays on. Rocky's sister Billie accepts him as her brother too. Then how Rocky disappeared slowly starts to come out. Georges Lautner's film is a French and Italian co-production, shot in the Canary Islands. Rita Hayworth plays Mara in one of the parts from the late stretch of her career. The telling starts as a story about identity and then turns into an uncomfortable family secret; most of the film's reputation now comes from that turn and from its music. Mimsy Farmer plays Billie. The construction is loose, but the tone stays in the mind for its strangeness.