Un pilota ritorna

For the first time I've seen a film by Roberto Rossellini prior to his Neorealist classics, based on a story by il Duce's son, Vittorio Mussolini (credited with the anagram Tito Silvio Mursino). So by its date and origin it may be labeled a "Fascist film", but not surprisingly Rossellini avoids any overt reference to or exaltation of the regime, from a screenplay co-written with Michelangelo Antonioni, among others. At first I thought I was going to see a sort of Italian "Top Gun" as the movie takes around 20 minutes describing the activities of Italian pilots, but soon the airplane of the title hero (Massimo Girotti, the star of Visconti's "Ossessione") is knocked down and he is imprisoned by the British officers. Suddenly the hunter becomes the hunted, and Rossellini elaborates on his belief that personal stories are illustrations of history and politics: the pilot is nothing but a puppet of his country's foreign policy. Rossellini then describes the state of the prisoners, as they endure cold, hunger and disease, and are taken by the British from an old farm to a port in the Mediterranean, while bombs are dropped over roads, fields and bridges, to a patriotic ending (that is revealed by the title). Rossellini tells this story in 85 minutes, with early examples of what Bazin would describe as "image fact": long takes, where the camera moves (including a 360° turn) not to advance the story, but to show the environment, the conditions where the characters interact. Rossellini narrates fast and synthesizes the fable, though his economy was not determined --as in "Romà, citta aperta"-- by the surrounding events (war), showing the development of a style that would grow during the Neorealist movement

There is a stark immediacy in the visual language of the film that elevates it above many of its contemporaries in the early 1940s, particularly within the narrow but potent subgenre of World War II aerial combat narratives. What sets this production apart is its raw, unpolished realism, achieved not through the bombast of large-scale battles or melodramatic heroics, but through a surprisingly restrained, almost documentary-like aesthetic. The black-and-white cinematography, far from being a technical limitation of its time, is leveraged to its fullest expressive potential. Grain, contrast, and the sparing use of deep focus shots provide a visual claustrophobia that matches the psychological state of its protagonist and the isolation of the cockpit environment.

The film resists the urge to mythologize its characters, favoring instead an understated, grounded approach to performance. The central actor gives a remarkably internalized interpretation, far removed from the declamatory style common in many wartime productions. His gaze, often directed beyond the camera or down to the earth below, communicates far more than dialogue ever could. This choice-relying heavily on physical stillness, silence, and glances-gives the film an emotional weight that is rarely found in similar Italian productions of the period, particularly those that veer more overtly into propaganda.

Technically, there is a notable absence of overtly stylized editing. The transitions are minimal, the pacing deliberate. The rhythm of the film is unhurried, allowing shots to linger long enough for the viewer to absorb the emotional and environmental texture. This is a deliberate decision, placing the psychological dimension of warfare above the physical spectacle. The dogfights are brief, almost impressionistic, captured with a mixture of aerial photography and model work that, while not flawless, avoids the jarring disconnect seen in other contemporaneous films like Target for Tonight or A Yank in the RAF. What it lacks in seamless effects, it compensates for in authenticity-there is no glamour in the air, only the mechanical hum of inevitability.

The sound design, particularly the use of silence, is among the film's most striking features. Rather than fill every moment with dramatic scoring, the film often steps back, allowing ambient noise-the hum of the engine, the wind, distant artillery-to dominate the soundscape. When music does appear, it is spare and diegetic, often delivered through radio static or muffled through distance, which reinforces the isolation and humanity of the central figure. Compared to the overbearing orchestrations found in many wartime American productions, this restraint is both refreshing and thematically aligned with the film's ethos.

Where the film encounters limitations is in its handling of secondary characters. Their presence feels schematic, almost symbolic, and while this minimalism contributes to the sense of desolation, it can also flatten the emotional resonance of certain scenes. In contrast to the textured ensemble found in The Way Ahead, where each supporting soldier enriches the narrative, here the supporting cast is primarily functional. This may be intentional, emphasizing the protagonist's alienation, but it also introduces a slight imbalance, reducing opportunities for dynamic interaction.

It is in the film's second half that its narrative becomes notably unstable, veering into a kind of disjointed chaos. This is not simply a question of unconventional structure, but of a fragmentation that feels more symptomatic than deliberate. Scenes flow into one another with minimal narrative glue, and the internal logic of time and place collapses. This descent into narrative incoherence may, to some extent, reflect the protagonist's own disorientation-surrounded by the constant noise of distant bombings, exhaustion, and existential vertigo-but it is also the result of a weak script and an over-reliance on atmospheric suggestion. With dialogue nearly disappearing in the latter sections, the film places a heavy burden on imagery and sound to carry emotional and narrative weight, a burden that is not always sustained. The sense of rupture, of drifting through war without clear markers, might evoke the chaos of the battlefield, but it also risks detachment, especially in the absence of a compelling structural or dramatic anchor.

Within the broader context of Rossellini's wartime output, the film occupies a curious and transitional space. It is the second entry in what would later be called his trilogia bellica, alongside La nave bianca and L'uomo dalla croce. Unlike La nave bianca, which embraces a more institutionally aligned, didactic tone, and L'uomo dalla croce, which spiritualizes combat through a morally centered narrative, this film is more uncertain, more inward-looking, and arguably the most fragmented of the three. It offers neither the clear collective vision of the first nor the moral parable of the third. Instead, it drifts-sometimes powerfully, sometimes frustratingly-through a psychological landscape scarred by solitude, aerial warfare, and emotional numbness.

This liminality is mirrored in Rossellini's evolving artistic voice. While his later neorealist masterpieces like Roma città aperta and Paisà are characterized by moral clarity, ensemble storytelling, and a strong socio-political gaze, this film remains closer to sensation than statement. It anticipates the formal tools of neorealism-on-location shooting, non-professional actors, ambient sound-but lacks the narrative and ideological cohesiveness that would later define his work. In contrast to the mosaic structure of Paisà, where fragmentation is organized around a unifying theme of liberation, this film's fragmentation often feels unmoored. It doesn't accumulate meaning so much as suggest emotional weather: instability, loss, stasis.

Comparisons with The First of the Few or Five Graves to Cairo underscore the film's refusal to indulge in character mythologization or narrative propulsion. Those films, though also produced during the war, retain a sense of theatricality and construction. This film, in contrast, seems to distrust its own frame, as if the act of filmmaking itself were compromised by the war it tries to depict. There is, to that extent, a kind of honesty in its disorder, a recognition that structure and clarity may be impossible under bombardment. But that honesty comes at a cost: it renders the film difficult to inhabit fully, often withholding the very emotional or narrative resolution that a viewer might instinctively seek.

And yet, within that difficulty lies its most compelling aspect. The film is not triumphant, nor is it tragic in any conventional sense. It is, rather, a study in suspension-of a man, of a narrative, of a nation. Its lack of coherence is not always successful, but it is revealing. In trying to depict war without heroic catharsis or narrative safety nets, it exposes the psychological limbo of those who survive not through victory but through endurance. It may not be Rossellini's most accomplished wartime film, but it is perhaps his most daringly unresolved.