Paisà

This film was well done for what Rosselini had. Although I was never a fan of many of these films done with left-over soldiers and bad actors to show what real-life people were like, "Paisan" definitely shows the unity of people joined in a cause. Each episode of the American progress north through Italy the American/Italian relationship become a little more united. Until, finally, in the Po River Valley, the Americans and the Italians are almost indistinguishable from one another. It conveys a good message through a good medium.

The on-location shooting was a plus, too. For people who have been to Firenze, Napoli, Sicilia, Roma, or any of the locations in this film, it is a stunning sight to see places you know crawling with Nazis and Allies struggling. It endows the movie with a sense of realism that it needs badly. It needs this realism because the acting is horrendous. Of course, the unskilled acting was supposed to convey more realism, but I think it detracts in actuality.

If you are interested in history or Italy during the World War, see this film. It is a good representation of what life was like then, but beware that not everything could be represented ... so it is not all-inclusive. It is a long film, but anyone with an interest will enjoy it immensely, I think.

Communication is fragile. A woman leads an Allied patrol through a mine field; she dies protecting a G.I., but the Yanks think she killed him. A street urchin steals shoes from a G.I. who tracks him to a shanty town. A G.I. meets a woman the day Rome is liberated; in six months they meet again: he's cynical, she's a prostitute. A US nurse braves the trip across the Arno into German fire in search of a partisan she loves. Three chaplains, including a Jew, call on a monastery north in the Apennines. Allied soldiers and partisans try to escape capture in the marshes of the Po.

Rossellini engaged six writers, each of whom was to write one episode: Klaus Mann, Marcello Pagliero, Sergio Amidei, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hayes, and Vasco Pratolini. Each episode took place in a different location. The script notwithstanding, Rossellini often improvised with the actors and rewrote the stories as they were being filmed. For the first episode filmed in Sicily, Rossellini discarded the script and coached the non-professional, illiterate lead actress Carmela Sazio to a performance that received critical praise.

I love the variety of views on World War II. What is especially interesting is how we start with the point of view of the Allies. For much of the war, Italy was not an Ally but was ruled by Mussolini, who gravitated towards Hitler. (Though Italy was the least "evil" of Germany, Japan and Italy.) So this film seemingly champions the recent enemy...

This movie is the masterpiece of Roberto Rossellini, more than Roma città aperta. I was eleven when this story happened, I saw the Nazi troop burn the little town where I lived, I saw my mother kneeling and begging a Nazi soldier not to kill us, and I saw the German saying You bastard italian, alles kaputt. All the stories of this movie are true, the little boy who is alone in Napoli, the Roman girl who loves the GI arrived and after became a bitch (is more difficult to win the peace than the war), the story in Florence, you think to be in August 44, the British officer who speakes of the poor jerries that destroys all the world around them, the execution of the fascist sniper, peoples running in the Gallery of Uffizi. But the most moving is the final episode,one can feel the fear, the smell of death, the courage of the partisans and of the O.S.S., Popsky army and San Marco men. Now, when many people has forgotten the horror of war, the cruelty of men, the courage of few, this picture should be projected as a memory of things that we don want to see anymore. My name is Bruno Signorelli, I am 67 and I have seen what means the war, especially the guerrilla war.

It's six vignettes of the Allied invasion of Italy. There is humor, romance, poignancy, drama and most of all there is tragedy. Together the six stories stitch together a mosaic that is hopefully as enduring as one of the great artwork of history.

An American recon squad enters a Sicilian village. One of them comes from a Sicilian background. Local girl Carmela guides them past German mines taking shelter in an old ruin. Joe stays with Carmela as the rest of the squad explores and they are surprised by a small squad of Germans. Carmela Sazio is very stiff as an actress. She's an amateur and there's value in that. However her character has a lot of emoting to do and she has trouble doing it.

A group of street performing kids in Naples find drunken negro soldier Joe. Pasquale takes him around and they have an adventure. The poor kid steals from him. He turns out to be an MP and later he finds Pasquale. He is angry and drags Pasquale back home. The poverty of his home convinces Joe to leave him the boots. The kids are terrific and in this case, it's unlikely to get better actor than this amateur kid.

In a liberated Rome, American GI Fred spends the night with prostitute Francesca. He has been searching for a woman he met 6 months ago and she realizes that she's actually that woman. This is a great story but I'm not sure it's set up right. It would be great to see them 6 months earlier.

Half of Florence is liberated. All but one bridge has been blown and the partisans are struggling against the Germans. American nurse Harriet is desperate to get across to find her love. She is joined by Massimo looking for his family. The location shoot of them sneaking around an abandoned Florence is amazing.

A monastery escapes damage from the war and is visited by three American chaplains. Catholic Captain Bill Martin translates but the monks are shocked to find the other two are a Protestant and a Jew. The monks intent on converting the two disbelievers.

It's the closing stage of the war in Europe, American OSS and Italian partisans are struggling behind German lines in the Po delta. Supplies are dwindling and the fight is deadly. They rescue two downed British airmen. They are ambushed and captured. This is the most brutal of the stories and it ends the movie with its most brutal scenes.

Having seen "The Bicycle Thieves" I was aware of Italian Neo-Realism as a film movement. The film is divided up into six sections with none of the stories crossing over to the other. I wished that the film was one cohesive story but I may have felt this way because of my previous viewing of "Bicycle Thieves." I have always liked the idea of Italian Neo-realism and its ability to capture stories in a realistic way. This is a really great example of an almost documentary style of filmmaking. The cities are real and so are the people. This makes the film more interesting to watch as it is in such a natural state. The characters in each story, particularly the sections that involve children were what moved me the most. Knowing that all of these stories most likely happened at some point makes this film very powerful to see. Even when I was reading previous reviews of the film, it was obvious that many people from other countries truly connected with this film because of how realistic it is. I am lucky enough to say I never experienced any of this turmoil but I can only imagine what kind of intensity the film would bring to my own life had I related to these characters. I would say this isn't my favorite representation of Italian Neo- realism but it is a great glimpse into the history of Italy as well as the history of cinema.