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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Italian Neo-Realist Masterpiece from 1946..., 15 Jun 2005
As 'Rome, Open City' (1945), Rossellini's feature concerns itself with World War II and its conclusion, and stands as a key-work of Italian Neo-Realism. Rossellini along with Vittorio De Sica ('The Bicycle Thieves','Umberto D')pretty much created this influential movement, building on elements apparent in Visconti's 'Ossessione' (1942). As with 'Rome, Open City' this film is partly improvised, it is co-written with Federico Fellini & presents a "real" depiction of people here- shot in a certain manner and characters who aren't black or white (the scene where the prostitute waits alone seems to me a key shot that exemplifies the Italian Neo-Realist movement).'Paisa' presents six-fragmented episodes between newsreel footage and the historical events of Italy's liberation and the battle for it between 1943 and 1945. The first concerns American troops & an Italian female (the denoument is heartbreaking); the second, a relationship between an African-American soldier and a child; the third, a drunken G.I. remembering an Italian girl he loved (not aware that the prostitute he is with is the very same girl); the fourth, Partisan-street-fighting in a splintered-Florence; the fifth, an episode in a Franciscan-monastery in which three war-chaplains stay with the Order (predicting 'Francis, God's Jester' a few years later) & the final episode centring on a marshland war near Venice which concludes in the deaths of many partisans, thrown bound in the river to drown (as heartbreaking & symbolic regarding the idea of war as the final scenes of Ingmar Bergman's 'Shame', & as matter of fact as Klimov's 'Come and See'). 'Paisa' is a masterpiece, one that presents the good guys in an unflattering way and thus an antithesis to simplistic World War II movies like 'Saving Private Ryan' & 'The Sands of Iwo Jima.' The look of the film predicts later films which look close to documentary - Pontecorvo's 'The Battle of Algiers' & Godard's 'Les Carabiniers.' The fractured, fragmented structure also looks towards the French New Wave, and the pay off endscene seems just as irnonic as that of say 'Bande a Part.' 'Paisa' warrants a similar DVD-reissue to that of 'Rome, Open City' and certainly ranks as one of the great war-films alongside 'Rome...','Come and See','Fires on the Plain','The Burmese Harp','Stalingrad','Salvador','The Battle of Algiers','Patton' & 'The Red & the White.'
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