Viva l'Italia

I think you need some knowledge of Italian history to full appreciate Roberto Rossellini's "Viva L'Italia" which has now largely been forgotten, (it's certainly no "The Leopard"), but this account of Garibaldi's fight to unify Italy still has a lot to recommend it; the battle scenes alone are some of the best on film and Rossellini shoots a lot of it in the same neo-realist style with which he made his name. It's less successful when it comes to the somewhat heavy-handed dialogue sequences and the largely wooden performance of its lead, Renzo Ricci as Garibaldi.

Like Visconit's "The Leopard" it was fundamentally butchered by its American distributors who cut the film, dubbed it, consequently altering Rossellini's message but they couldn't alter the look of the film; visually this is one of the most beautiful of all Rossellini's work and its recent rediscovery is certainly welcome.