Germania anno zero, 1947
[Germany, Year Zero]
Amid
the rubble of postwar Germany, a 12-year-old boy named Edmund (Edmund
Moeschke) is hired to dig graves at a cemetery, then is chased away
when he is unable to produce his work permit. It is Year Zero
- the beginning of a divided Germany - and the country is faced with
an uncertain future of food rations, energy shortages, and an unstable
economy. On the way home, Edmund encounters a crowd hovering over
a dead horse, and is brushed aside by a policeman after asking for
a portion of the horse meat. Without hesitation, Edmund then walks
towards his next opportunity, as a slow-moving coal truck traverses
the street, and Edmund immediately picks up the fallen pieces of coal.
He returns home to a small room in a war-ravaged apartment building,
where he lives with his invalid father (Ernst Pittschau), his resourceful
sister, Eva (Ingetraud Hinze), and his cowardly brother Karl-Heinz
(Franz Kruger). Fearing prosecution for war crimes as a Nazi soldier,
Karl-Heinz refuses to register with the police in order to qualify
for a work permit and social services, and the family is forced to
subsist on three ration cards. Meanwhile, Eva, unable to find work,
spends every evening escorting Allied soldiers at dance halls, where
she receives a handful of cigarettes to be used for bartering goods
and services. One day, while wandering the streets, Edmund meets his
former school teacher, Mr. Henning (Eric Guehne), an inscrutable and
discredited intellectual who profits from the sale of Nazi propaganda.
Mr. Henning takes interest in young Edmund, and puts him to work with
a group of young, disaffected vagrants. Inevitably, as Edmund becomes
consumed by the despair and cruelty of his devastated environment,
he drifts further away from the support and moral guidance of his
family.
Arguably the most harrowing and nihilistic installment of Roberto
Rossellini's Trilogy of War, Germany,
Year Zero is a caustic portrait of dehumanization and social
disintegration. Filmed soon after the unexpected death of Rossellini's
young son, Romano, in 1946, the protagonist, Edmund, becomes a tragic
symbol of national guilt and personal pain: the embodiment of lost
innocence; the uncertainty of profound change; the guilt of survival;
the seeming hopelessness of the future. In essence, the repeated image
of Edmund wandering through the devastated wasteland of postwar Berlin
reflects, not only the unreconciled spirit of the German people, but
also Rosselini's own attempt to come to terms with his own loss. Inevitably,
like the aimless Edmund, Rossellini, too, searches for an elusive
meaning to an inconsolable tragedy.
©
Acquarello 2001. All rights reserved>
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Shortly
after the liberation of Italy in 1945, Roberto Rossellini took
to the war ravaged streets of Rome and filmed a highly unsettling,
yet profoundly affirming story of the struggle and defiance of
ordinary people in the face of human adversity, and created the
indelible image of 
In
the midst of a torrential rain, Brother Francis of Assisi (Brother
Nazario Gerardi) in the province of Umbria and his disciples arrive at their
outpost in the rural village of Rivo Torto to seek shelter from the
inclement weather, only to be driven away by a trespassing peasant
who, along with his donkey, have forcibly laid claim to the modest
hut. It is a base and uncivilized response that Brother Francis optimistically
rationalizes by remarking "Have we not now reason to rejoice?
Providence at last has made us useful to others" before continuing
on their journey. Arriving at the abandoned ruins of the chapel of St.
Mary of the Angels, the friars set up camp on the outskirts of town
where they immediately begin to reconstruct the derelict chapel and
upon completion, set out in the morning on daily communal interactions
with the villagers, propelled by their spiritual mentor's words of
guidance to set an example for others and "engage in honest work
and make yourselves not dependent on each other". Regrettably,
but amusingly, the selfless intent of the charitable gesture is taken
all too literally by the naive Brother Ginepro who invariably returns
to camp in a state of undress, often offering his sole remaining
possession - his cassock - to beggars on the street. Relegated by
Francis to the confined task of cooking meals within the camp in
order to keep him from falling prey to opportunists in the village, Ginepro
is soon kept company by an endearing, but absent-minded old man named
Giovanni who has arrived at the chapel with a bull in tow demanding
to speak with 'Saint' Francis, having decided to forsake his family (who,
in turn, seem more perturbed by the loss of the useful farm animal
than by the desertion of their dotty patriarch) and follow Francis in his
humble vocation. However, worn down by the hapless and trouble-prone
Ginepro's interminable attempts to return to ministry service, Francis
accommodates his request and sends him out into the countryside, where
a fateful encounter with a ruthless and megalomaniacal tyrant named
Nicolaio (Aldo Fabrizi) becomes a test of absolute faith. 
In
an upscale district of Rome, a cosmopolitan American socialite
named Irene Girard (Ingrid Bergman) hurries home with her pet
in tow and is greeted by the concierge with the inconvenient
news that the elevator is again out of service. It is a perfunctory
irritation for the carefree and sophisticated expatriate whose
pressing engagement is revealed to be the hosting of an intimate
dinner party with her husband George (Alexander Knox) that has
now been revised to include the recent invitation of two additional
guests: George's aunt Margaret and her son, an intellectual and
communist radical named André (Ettore Giannini). With little
time before their friends arrive, Irene rushes to the bedroom
in order to change into her evening clothes, only to be repeatedly
accosted by her coddled, temperamental adolescent son Michel
(Sandro Franchina) who sullenly - and unrelentingly - demands
her undivided attention. However, with the gradual arrival of
the dinner guests, Irene cursorily dismisses Michel who is relegated
to his room for the evening, making only a brief, polite appearance
to receive a gift train set which the young man accepts with
visible indifference before summarily walking away. The vacuous
and uneventful dinner is then disrupted by the housekeeper Cesira's
(Tina Perna) harried notification that Michel - perhaps in a
desperate bid for attention - has fallen down a flight of stairs.
The incident proves to be a turning point in Irene's contented
and self-absorbed bourgeois existence as her inconsolable grief
becomes a catalyst for introspection and social conscience.
Voyage
in Italy