Noi vivi

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.

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.

Goffredo Alessandrini's unauthorized 1942 version of Ayn Rand's novel "We the Living" appeared in Fascist Italy in two separate parts: NOI VIVI and ADDIO, KIRA. They are essentially one film. It was the grim story of post-revolutionary Russia, the forced collectivization of the economy and the brutal suppression of human rights, all told from the viewpoint of one woman, Kira. Ayn Rand's novel was autobiographical and was essentially a diatribe against the loss of individuality in totalitarian societies.

The film attracted a sizable audience in Italy. The Fascist government saw the film(s) as a condemnation of Soviet misery but when it became aware that the movie(s) implied a condemnation of all totalitarian states, left and right, it withdrew them from distribution.

They were not seen again and were thought lost until the early 1960s when Ayn Rand's attorneys located prints in Rome. Ayn Rand liked the movie(s) a great deal, while having reservations about certain liberties that had been taken with dialog and situations. She died in 1982 and did not live to see the re-issue of the film, which was brought about under the auspices of the Ayn Rand estate. The original two-part 4-hour version was edited down to a 170-minute one-film version. One major speech (of Fosco Giachetti) was redubbed to assert Randian philosophy, and the ending (with the death of Kira in the snow as she is shot trying to escape from Russian) was eliminated, rendering the film more optimistic.

We are glad that the film was made available in some form after having been lost for decades. After all, how many films from Fascist Italy get picked up for commercial distribution in America these days? But we also regret that Alessandrini's complete artistic achievement was truncated and tampered with. Wasn't creative integrity the theme of Rand's novel "The Fountainhead"?

Having had the good fortune of seeing the uncut integral two films on video in Italy, I can vouch for them as being more satisfying, less disjointed in that format. Let's be clear. This new version is NOT a "restoration" as some are calling it. It is, rather, an "adaptation." We are ambivalent about it but pleased to have it. And the 35mm print material is first rate.

As much as anything else, WE THE LIVING is a whopping good love story, of "Camille"-like intensity and "Anna Karenina"-like grandeur. The stunning Alida Valli as Kira and Rossano Brazzi as her wastrel lover Leo, devour the screen in their scenes together. Fosco Giachetti as Andrei, head of the secret police and willing to sacrifice honor and ideals for Kira, is poignant and unforgettable. As is this film, or as are these films.

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.)

Ayn Rand had great difficulty in getting her semi-autobiographical first novel published as it was regarded as anti-Communist at a time when Communism was seen as a bulwark against Fascism. Sales were minimal and the stage adaptation closed in less than a week. By the late 1950's of course the true horrors of Communism had emerged and with two successful novels to her name, one of which had been filmed by King Vidor, the second edition of 'We, the Living' became a best-seller.

Hardly surprising that its unflattering depiction of post-revolutionary Russia found favour in Mussolini's Italy. This excellent film version by Goffredo Alessandrini was a great success commercially and not surprisingly won the Volpi Cup. After a few months however it occurred to the authorities that it might also be viewed as anti-Fascist, whereupon it was withdrawn and disappeared.

Following its rediscovery and restoration it was released in the two-part version we now know but owing to poor distribution has not alas received the recognition it so richly deserves and is destined to be appreciated by a handful of cinéphiles.

Ayn Rand's narrative skills and the rich tableau of characters bear witness to her admiration for Dostoevsky and Hugo whilst as a young woman in Petrograd she and her family experienced similar hardships to those in the film. A distinct feature of her novels is that of a woman involved with more than one man and this is no exception. Kira Argounova, played by Alida Valli, is loved by both the Leo Kovalensky of Rosanno Brazzi and the Andrei Taganov of Fosco Giachetti. Kira is a tragic heroine in true Tolstoy mode and would be even more tragic in this had not the makers changed the ending! The twenty-one year old Valli with her wonderfully expressive eyes is utterly luminous here and shows the promise that she was to fulfil. Brazzi as Leo, the revolutionary who betrays his principles, turns in what is indisputably his best performance. It is however that of Giachetti that leaves the strongest impression. Usually cast as a leading man in Fascist propoganda films, he brings his powerful presence and intensity to the role of Andrei the disillusioned Party official whose character is as tragic as that of Kira. I have never alas seen the Italian version of 'The Brothers Karamazov' but can well imagine his effectiveness as Dmitri.

Expertly directed by Alessandrini, the film is enhanced by another of Renzo Rossellini's full-blooded scores whilst cinematographer Giuseppe Caracciolo has excelled in the dramatic use of close ups in which the characters fill the screen.

Already evident here are the author's uncompomising views regarding the individual versus the state. In his final speech Andrei dismisses the idea of the 'common good' and goes on to say "Every honest man lives for himself....because that's the way man is."