Roma, città aperta (1945)

Second viewing; first was on June 17, 1988.

English titles: Open City; Rome, Open City.

Rome, during the Nazi occupation. An engineer in the Resistance manages to escape just in time when the Nazis raid his house. He takes refuge in the house of a Resistance fellow, a typographer, next-door to the latter's fiancée (they plan to marry the next day). Her sister is a performing artist, one of whose co-workers is in a relationship with the engineer and is a morphine addict. The latter's supplier is a Nazi agent. There is also a priest who helps the resistance by running errands and the like.

I tried to analyze its technique with some expectation of finding flaws, but, apart from a couple of really unelegantly edited sequences, I was unable to find anything badly done. On the other hand, a scene which I detested on first viewing -- Pina's death -- impressed me very well this time. I think that on my first viewing I found it lacking in realism, a term which then I understood to refer mainly to behavioral credibility. But the term 'realism' as applied to this film only makes sense in reference to some aspects of its filmmaking procedures, for example, location shooting. Albeit working with some facts from then-recent history, it seems distant from historical accuracy or psychological verisimilitude. Its propagandistic tone is quite evident, and so is its melodramatic quality. From what I read in Wikipedia, I understand the director was a fascist collaborator from the beginning, and all the way to the extinction of the regime, and then adhered to the new one very promptly. For what it is worth: in Roma, città aperta, if I recall correctly, the fascists are almost completely absent, the main conflict being between the Nazis and the Resistance.

Rating: 51 (up from 44)