The War Trilogy

Roberto Rosselini’s captivating trilogy offers a fascinating insight into the human condition, emotively told through individual tales set during and immediately after WW2.

The first film, titled Rome, Open City, stars then leading Italian character Aldo Fabrizi, the great Anna Magnani, and Marcello Pagliero. Set in Nazi-occupied Rome in 1943 (and made just two years later), we learn the story of several of our protagonists whose lives become inextricably intertwined when fate intervenes – leading towards an outcome that can only be grim!

The second film, titled Paisà (1946), is split in six separate episodes, all of which feature American GIs to do their bit during a time when Nazi Germany was losing the war against the Allies. The stories involve American soldiers, Nazis, Italian partisans, three priests, street-workers, and of course an irrepressible bevvy of thieving street urchins. An additional point of interest is the fact that one of the screenwriters for Paisà was Klaus Mann, the son of famous German novelist Thomas Mann (Death In Venice).

The final film in the trilogy is titled Germany, Year Zero and, as the title suggests, is not set in Italy but in Berlin during the post-war years. The film further is dedicated to the memory of Rossellini’s then recently departed son Romano.
The story here circles around the Kohler family, in particular young Edmund (who closely resembled the director’s son), who carries quite a weight on his shoulders, more or less having to look after his family: his father is old and ill, his elder brother Karl-Heinz is in hiding from the authorities, thus has no food ration card, and his sister Eva is forced to ‘work’ in a cabaret night after night. Desperately trying to get money for food, Edmund (Edmund Moeschke) falls prey to the creepy ex-schoolmaster Herr Henning (Erich Gühne), exploiting young boys for dodgy black market deals…

As in most neo-realist movies, Rossellini employed non-professionals alongside a number of professionals. In the case of Germany, Year Zero, all the actors with the exception of ‘Father Kohler’ (who was a retired silent movie actor) were non-professionals. This gives the film a certain raw edge, and works particularly well in the context of the socio-political climate at the time.

Looking at these films from the technical viewpoint, it might be pointed out that I then young Federico Fellini contributed to the Italian films of the trilogy as a screenwriter, while Rossellini’s brother Renzo supplied the overtly dramatic scores. The b/w photography gives these films an even more haunting quality, in particular the bombed-out ruins serve only too well to give a totally realistic impression.

All three discs come with bonus features. On Disc 1 we get the documentary ‘Children of Open City’ featuring Vito Annicchiarico who played Anna Magnani’s son. He gives us some fascinating insights into what happened during filming and visits some of the original locations.
Disc 2 features ‘Into The Future’ –an informative visual essay on the War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher (a somewhat lacklustre narration).
Finally, on Disc 3 Magnani fans can rejoice as we are treated to two shortish films starring the grand dame of Italian stage and screen herself. Titled L’Amore, the first and shorter of the two, The Human Voice, was written by Jean Cocteau. In this, Magnani portrays a neurotic-obsessive woman who spends all of her time on the telephone attempting to come to terms – and failing abysmally – with a broken relationship.
The second story is called The Miracle and can be described as a tragi-comedy in which Magnani is cast as a simple-minded peasant woman who, in between having conversations with saints and other holy beings, looks after a herd of goats. One day a man she believes to be Saint Joseph crosses her path and she confesses to him while consuming a generous amount of his wine. Some time later, while she longs to be with the angels in heaven and see Saint Joseph again, she realises she is pregnant! We can only assume that the man, who was of course not a saint, took advantage of the woman while in a drunken state. Forever being the laughing stock of the local villagers, she is destined to continue her life as an outcast albeit still with her concrete belief that a saint came to her rescue.

The set of this fully restored trilogy furthermore contains an illustrated booklet with new essays.