Filmed in stark black and white, with a relatively low budget ,the film depicts the tragic fate of a young girl (Géraldine Chaplin) and her blind little brother, unfortunate victims in WW2 in Yugoslavia in . A very accessible movie , I would highly recommend it, but for people with a strong heart ,because nothing is spared the viewer ;utterly uncompromising , it describes the horrors ,the crimes against humanity ,the compatriots' cowardise and selfishness, the policemen's collaboration with the Nazis .
The prologue sets the tone. Lenka and her brother are near the railroad track: they can see one of those "trains of death" en route to the concentration camps ;the moments of happiness will be few and far between,always tinged with an impending threat :
-the little show, with the travelling artists and their bear , brutally cut short by the soldiers .
-the father,who escaped from a camp and meets again his son and daughter ,but soon realizes that he's a prisoner in his own house, and he is not the welcome in his village when he asks for help from a wealthy compatriot .
-Ivan , Lenka's fiancé ,(Nino Castelnuovo),a resistant fighter, talking of their future together, but always "in the future tense" for they know, mainly the girl ,that they are already doomed. Even Lenka's final sublime sacrifice will probably be of no use ...
The film depicts the crimes against the Jews (Lenka's father is a Jew ,an officer who fought for his country,"but it's worse ",says the hateful aristocrat),but also against the gypsies: the scene of the funeral when they segue from a funeral dirge into a joyous dance music , displays their grit and their contempt for their persecutors. The partisans' executions, in a gloomy landscape ,were perhaps inspired by Kubrik 's "paths of glory".
But ,last but no least,it's the last scene ,although thoroughly desperate, which really makes the film a great one; The admirable Chaplin' s sweet depiction of a dream inside a nightmare predates Roberto Begnini's "la vita e bella " by thirty years.
Nelso Riso is Dino's brother ;this film is his first effort ,and he would continue in this ambitious vein with his second effort " diaro di una schizophrenia". Cesare Zavattini collaborated on the screenplay based on a book.
