Roberto Rossellini directs Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani and Marcello Pagliero in this Italian Neo-Realist drama depicting the resistance and suffering of ordinary people in Nazi-occupied Rome during World War II.

I haven’t watched this since my Film Studies A-Level class over 25 years ago. A* btw. It hit harder this time. I could see the poetic humanity in many of the scenes. Made in the ruins of post-war Rome, immediately after the withdrawal of the German forces, with a cast consisting mainly of non-actors. Rossellini invented a sub-genre. Rome Open City is also a movie with a moment so powerful, so memorable, so iconic that you misremember that being the end of the movie. There’s a whole other act of torture, oppression and gentle defiance after the “big scene”. A work of art but also very entertaining. Rossellini knows when to inject some humour and action into all his didactic intent. Immortally powerful for a film made on the fly with scrap ends of celluloid.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Paisan (1946)

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