SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Turfseer Shot between January and June 1945, Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City, chronicles the effect of Nazi occupation on the people of Rome a year earlier. Unlike other films of the time, many scenes were shot on location in a documentary style. The lack of funds and good film stock forced Rossellinni to cut corners so the quality of some of the scenes do not appear to have been lit properly—nonetheless, the sometimes grainy images add to the overall verisimilitude of the narrative.After Italy faithfully followed the fascist dictator Mussolini for twenty years and he was finally deposed two years earlier, Rossellini's main intent was to rehabilitate the Italian people in the eyes of the world. No matter how noxious Mussolini was, his machinations could never equal the sheer terror machine which was Nazi Germany, and the Italians, under the yoke of Nazi oppression, became victims soon after Hitler's troops marched into Rome and began terrorizing the populace.Rossellini's main protagonist is Giorgio Manfedi (Marcello Pagliero), an engineer and Communist resistance leader, who we later learn did 12 years hard time as an anti-Fascist agitator. After escaping the Nazis by fleeing from a rooming house and climbing over rooftops, Giorgio makes his way to the apartment of fellow Resistance fighter, Francesco. Not home yet, he ends up speaking with his next-door neighbor, Pina, Francesco's pregnant fiancée (played by the iconic Anna Magnani, whose performance as Pina made her a star).We're next introduced to Don Pietro, a Catholic priest sympathetic to the Resistance, who is scheduled to officiate at Pina and Francesco's wedding the next day. In Rossellini's world view, Don Pietro and Giorgio are not incompatible despite past conflicts between Communists and a right-leaning Catholic church. The Nazi terror bonds them together and indeed Don Pietro is more than willing to help Giorgio by taking money and information to Resistance leaders outside the city. As a priest, he is permitted to roam about during the curfew.The collaborators are represented by two women: Pina's sister, Laura, and Marina, Giorgio former girlfriend, who both work at the same cabaret, and receive financial support by prostituting themselves to German officers. The fact that Giorgio never suspects that Marina is a collaborator is perhaps one of the most glaring weaknesses of the script.Rossellini did a wonderful job casting a dance hall entertainer, Harry Fiest, to play the SS commander in the City, Major Bergmann. Some have complained that Bergmann appears effeminate and it's been argued that homosexuality was often linked to the perverse evil of the Nazis in films of the time. In reality, Hitler and many of his minions, may have actually been homosexuals (see the book "The Hidden Hitler" by Lothar Machtan) but the association of Nazism and homosexuality should not cause those in our own time to conclude there is an underlying pathology to being gay (in fact, the Nazis of course persecuted homosexuals but of those Nazis who were homosexual, it's been posited that they didn't see themselves as "gay"—their wrath was reserved for homosexuals of a more liberal or left-wing persuasion).Bergmann is aided by another collaborator, the Italian Fascist police chief, and with his help, a raid is ordered at Francesco's apartment. Giorgio escapes but Francesco is rounded up and in a shocking, brilliant scene, Pina is gunned down as she runs toward Francesco, who is being taken away in a truck full of prisoners. Francesco fortunately escapes after resistance fighters ambush the truck and free its captives.Not all the Germans are seen as evil—an Austrian defector comes to Don Pietro seeking help but he's eventually arrested by the Gestapo along with Giorgio and Don Pietro after Marina betrays them for drugs and a fur coat (Bergmann's assistant is Ingrid, an apparent lesbian, who is involved with Marina, and convinces her to give up Giorgio.) Francesco manages to avoid arrest when he tarries for a minute longer saying goodbye to Pina's young son, Marcello.Rossellini creates an odd set where Bergmann's headquarters is in a room sandwiched in between a torture chamber and bar for the officers. Bergmann is more than a one-dimensional character—he's nuanced enough to recognize that if he fails to gets his prisoners to talk, they'll be considered on the same level of his fellow Nazis, who he presumes will never break under torture—thus negating the theory of the master race. Another great touch is when Captain Hartmann, Bergmann's underling, blurts out that all the Nazis know is "killing, killing, killing," while he's intoxicated—but the next day, while sober, ends up executing Don Pietro with glee!Giorgio is the first to undergo torture, and Rossellini makes it even more horrifying when Bergmann opens the door to the torture chamber and allows the audience glimpses of what's going on. He brings Don Pietro in (since he can't see clearly after breaking his glasses earlier on) and gazes at a Christ-like Giorgio, then realizing his fellow resistance leader is dead. In a brilliant scene, the often self-sacrificing priest suddenly loses his cool and curses out Bergmann and his group including Marina, who faints at the sight of her deceased former boyfriend. Don Pietro is of course only human and we come to realize that sometimes religion is a mask for repressed rage. The denouement involves the execution of Don Pietro up on a hillside—witnessed by boys from his parish. Notably, the Italian soldiers intentionally fire and miss at the doomed priest, tied up to a chair—and the aforementioned Captain Hartmann delivers the coup de grace.The brilliance of Rossellini's vision lies in his lack of sentiment—the tragedy of lives lost at the hands of monsters is never soft-pedaled. Rome, Open City is a classic due to its powerful script and indelible images.

l_rawjalaurence Filmed under extreme circumstances in the aftermath of the German withdrawal, ROME: OPEN CITY tells a straightforward tale of Resistance fighters battling against the Nazi occupiers. Three of them are eventually caught, including the priest Don Pietro Pellegrini (Aldo Fabrizi) and hanged, tortured or forced to commit suicide. Meanwhile Pina (Anna Magnani) is shot down in cold blood after she tries to rescue her prospective husband Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero).This bald plot-summary cannot do justice to a film that is quite simply brilliant. Although classed as a neo-realist piece, director Roberto Rossellini does not favor the extensive use of pans or long- shots to establish the situations; there are comparatively few shots of a war-destroyed Rome, except at the film's end. Instead Rossellini uses a more domestic palette, with plenty of shots of dilapidated apartment-blocks in dire need of restoration, or seedy rooms where the Resistance fighters hatch their plans. The streets are desolate, peopled only by a few horses and carts - apart from the occasion when a Nazi force comes to root out their enemies, accompanied by their superior officers in expensive-looking cars. Contrast the desolation of the Roman streets with the opulence of the Nazi quarters, where the sadistic interrogator Major Bergmann (Harry Feist) takes his mind off torturing his enemies by sipping brandies and listening to soft piano music while placing a paternal arm round his girlfriend. Even though their days of occupation might be numbered, there is no reason why they should not continue to enjoy the high life.The film contains some memorable sequences, photographed by Ubaldo Arata. As the Nazi troops search for their enemies in an apartment block, the camera tilts upwards to show the apparently endless flights of stairs. The action cuts to the priest and the little boy Francesco (Francesco Grandjacquet) looking down the flights of stairs to ascertain where the troops are. The effect is dizzying, making us aware of the impending sense of danger. Later on Pina's death-scene is also memorably filmed, as she runs towards a tracking camera in a futile attempt to rescue her fiancé. A shot rings out, and she crumples to the ground; the camera immediately switches to a medium close-up of Manfredi's horrified face (as he is taken away by the Nazis) followed by another tracking shot of Francesco running out from the crowd towards his dead mother, screaming wildly.The torture-scenes still remain difficult to watch. We do not actually see anything bloody; instead Rossellini achieves his dramatic effect through Manfredi's screams on the soundtrack intercut with the Priest's horrified countenance as he witnesses what is happening. The Nazis know no bounds when it comes to extracting information out of their victims. It is a tribute to Manfredi's stoicism that he refuses to talk under any form of duress.The final sequence is also memorable as the Priest is executed by firing-squad in a lonely field outside the city. Rossellini uses a group-shot of local children burying their heads in their hands as they hear the fatal shot to achieve his dramatic effect. To the accompaniment of dramatic music (by Renzo Rossellini) he cuts to a long shot of the ruined city as the action draws to a close. The only way to endure occupation is through resistance and stoicism, even under the most extreme pressure.If we wanted to be reminded of what life was truly like under the Third Reich, ROME: OPEN CITY is a seminal text.

snideelf First time I've seen this. Great dialog. I liked the scene where one of the German officers who has had too much to drink just comes out and tells everyone that the Germans are just mass murderers. I did not expect that from this movie which was somehow made in 1945. I thought the end was dumb because you have a German officer telling a squad of Italians armed with loaded rifles to execute an Italian priest who refused to talk. Italians in those days were more loyal to the Catholic Church so I was hoping that the squad of Italian executioners would have just turned and aimed their rifles at the German officer and those 2 Italian collaborators wearing trench coats. That would have made for a better ending. Unless of course this movie is based on a true story in which case it had to be told the way it really happened and not the way the audience would have liked it to end. Good movie. End could have been better. You have to give people hope in a hopeless world.

Ilpo Hirvonen After WWII filmmakers tried to find their ways to deal with history. A British director Humphrey Jennings made evocative documentaries about WWII and Americans made more romantic features about the war from their perspective. Here Italy comes in. The nation which had just got away from the chains of fascist management. Today this postwar Italian movement is known as neorealism, which is recognized from its reportage-like characterization, national personal gallery and dramatization of the resistance. But it cannot only be described by these external aesthetic features. The starting points in Italian neorealism were in the anti-fascist battle and the Italian liberalization.The people who formed neorealism, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rosselini and many others, wanted to bring Italy back to the midst of other nations. They wanted to find their own way of dealing with the history. Narratively the way was the documentary, reportage-like characterization. The shady cinematography combined with the daring description of Italians. Even today Open City is praised as the symbol of the resistance and the picture of the character played by Anna Magnani was actually published in a stamp after 50 years in Italy. Her character became the symbol of the resistance.Film historians often tend to argue, who actually started neorealism. In 1943 Luchino Visconti directed Ossessione, which at least aesthetically looks like the work of a neorealist. Which probably is true, but neorealism is seen as a postwar genre and since the WWII ended in 1945, the statement that Ossessione would've began the movement is weak. But it most certainly did give it a start and the ingredients. Some also state that De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) is the greatest film of neorealism. I think that Bicycle Thieves is a masterpiece, but when defining what neorealism actually is Rosselini's reportage-like characterization works better than De Sica's lyricism. Open City is the first film, which finely defined neorealism.Open City is perhaps the most personal film by Rosselini. It was written under the watchful eyes of the fascist management, where the risk of getting arrested was always near. This made Rosselini and the other screenwriter Sergio Amidei feel like they were a part of the resistance - what would be greater than to write your own page to history? When young Federico Fellini (today the most famous of the team) joined the crew, they started to film it with an incredibly low budget. Roberto Rosselini has said: "Open City achieved more than all the efforts of the Italian Foreign Ministry put together. It helped Italy to find its own place among other nations." Rome Open City is a picture of its own time, it's a landmark in the history of cinema. In both the WWII genre and in Italian neorealism, which influenced the Japanese postwar cinema (Kurosawa, Ichikawa) and the Nouvelle Vague - French New Wave (Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Chabrol & Rohmer). It's a cry for democracy and freedom. It is a hopeful picture of Italy free from the chains of the fascists. It meant a totally new way of dealing with the history. Open City was a very ambitious film, but it succeed in all of its intentions. It is still a timeless masterpiece.