Noi vivi

This is an absolutely astonishing film, a libertarian, feminish critique of Mussolini Italy gotten past the fascist censors under the cover of War Time anti-Communism, a demonstration of Rand's melodramatic strengths before they get encumbered by her anti-altruistic, hyper-free market hysteria. Wonderfully graced by the Vali of later THIRD MAN fame in her radiant youth and Rossano Brazzi a couple of decades before his windy turn in SOUTH PACIFIC. (Comes in two, sometimes separately titled, parts.)

This entry refers to the Italian title for the Goffredo Allesandrini wartime production of Rand's 1936 autobiographical novel "We The Living". Released in Fascist Italy, it was banned after a five-month run when authorities discovered that the anticollectivist statements by several characters applied as much to fascism as to the communism in Russia to which the plot specifically referred. At least one print was discovered in Italy in the 1960's and in 1986 the film was rereleased with English subtitles under the English title.

I haven't watched that many Italian films made prior to the neo-realist movement but I knew of this film from "Leonard Maltin's Film Guide", so I taped it when shown on late-night TV some years ago. Though it had lain in my "VHS To Watch" pile since that time, I decided to give it a whirl now as a tribute to its leading lady Alida Valli - who died only last week!

The film's history is as convoluted as that of its narrative, which is close to 3 hours in length: the story takes place in Russia and the plot (an unauthorized adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel) naturally dealt with Communism; being a wartime production (if still handsomely mounted), it was deemed to be critical of the Fascist regime and subsequently banned! Only in 1986 was the film restored to its current form - and distributed in the U.S. to considerable success - but, unfortunately, the source print wasn't perfect (with the result that the video version suffers from some distracting fuzziness, particularly towards the end)...

Despite its epic scope, the film is decidedly talky and necessarily heavy-going in nature; but the acting (featuring perhaps romantic idol Rossano Brazzi's finest performance) is terrific and, as a whole, the narrative anticipates another troubled wartime epic - Marcel Carne''s masterpiece CHILDREN OF PARADISE (1945), particularly in the way Valli is pursued by a number of suitors throughout the film but ends up alone by the end of it.

The only other film by director Goffredo Alessandrini I've watched is ABUNA MESSIAS (1939), another historical piece but - ironically enough - a propagandist one! In the end, with all the celebrated classics that have emerged from Italy along the years by any number of influential auteurs, WE THE LIVING remains - with good reason - an important film and, undeniably, one of the most impressive (if largely unsung) ever made in that country.

This commentary is for the transformed and edited American version of the Italian film "Noi vivi" that was released in Italy in two parts - "Noi vivi" and "Addio Kira!". Unfortunately I haven't seen the Italian integral version, but even in the American version the film hasn't lost the grandeur.

"We, the living" ("Noi vivi" Part 1 & 2) - the film is alive. It hasn't dated and it can't simply be dismissed as anticommunist propaganda. "We, the living" goes beyond that. The film was made in 1942 and the action takes place in Russia (then Soviet Union) from the early 20s to the early 30s. Taking into account the historical facts mentioned in the film, the story maybe takes place between 1922 and 1930. Still the story could take place in Mussolini's Italy or any other country ruled by a dictatorship. To give a very simple definition, the film is about the fight of Man against Society, but this is a too narrow definition as "We, the living" is mainly about love, beauty and the right of each one to choose his/her own way.

Kira, a eighteen-year old girl, goes with her family from Crimea to St. Petersburg (then called Petrograd). They are white Russians (the white Russians were against the communists and they were usually of noble or middle class extraction). In St. Petersburg their life is very difficult. The communists are slowly tightening their grip. It's necessary to adapt to the new reality, but will the communists let them breathe in peace? Kira will know Leo Kovalenski (son of the admiral Kovalenski, shot by the communists), who has become an undesirable and is on the run from the reds. They fall in love, but he's in hiding, he can't be seen. It's all very difficult! In the meantime Kira gets to know Andrei, a GPU (the soviet secret police) officer. Attraction. And this attraction will grow. A love triangle and a dilemma for Kira. Each one of the main characters will face a dilemma.

In "We, the living" the cinematography, the acting and the soundtrack give the film a contemporaneous feel. "We, the living" may not have many outdoor scenes but evokes quite well the harsh Russian winters and the snowy landscape... the plight of the white Russians, the crowded streets and apartments, the disillusion that follows in the wake of every revolution... And Alida Valli, as the young Kira, is quite impressing. Fosco Giachetti, as the GPU officer deserves mention too, the acting in general is first rate. As to the film, there's no need to be afraid of the subject - there's no vulgar anticommunist propaganda (as there were so many!). "We, the living" is more multifaceted than you may think (watch it with open eyes and brain). It's a really moving and absorbing film.

The film might be well made with excellent actors and a wonderful music score, and the first part is actually quite interesting and beautiful, while the second part presents all the problems, which above all are about Ayn Rand, the author, herself. She is extremely debatable as an author and even more so as a philosopher with some leading position in certain circles, but here you find already in her first book and the first film made on any of her works the objectionable syndrome of Ayn Rand, which you also find in other works of literature dealing with the leadership and autocracy of the Russian revolution, like Arthur Koestler's "Midnight at Noon", a revolting novel describing in detail the dominating inhumanity of the communist system. It is as if everyone that got stuck in this political cataclysm were damaged for life and branded by its supreme incompatibility with any kind of humanism and humanity. Ayn Rand was never aware herself of how she was marked for life by this venom of inhumanity, which shows in every single work of hers, like as if she was unconsciously brainwashed. Her philosophy above all bears the brand of this alien trait of callous inhumanity. Like all philosophy, it tends to alienate itself from reality to get stuck in its own artificial theoretical constructions, which must inevitably turn it away from any touch of humanity and get a character of inhumanity, which started already with Plato, who actually banned Homer from his ideal republic, risking thereby to ban humanity and humanism itself - "Nothing human shall be alien to me" (Menander, his formula and often quoted basic concept of humanism). That's the problem of this novel and film - it becomes dominated by the inhumanity of the system, which deprives its characters of their humanity and credibility, which drives Andrei to suicide, which is a very human and logic reaction, and his way of reaching some atonement for his involvement in the system. The problem is perhaps above all historical. What happened in 1914 was the deplorable fact that inhumanity took over the world, starting in Russia, and then followed by the established ("national") socialism of Germany. Alessandrini's eloquent film might have been a personal effort to deal with this in a masked objection assault against his own Italian fascist regime, and as such it is commendable, but Ayn Rand was hopelessly from the beginning ruined for life by the inhuman monstrosity of the Russian revolution and carried that horrible stamp of unconscious brainwash through all her works.