Notes for Rome, Open City

Film: Rome, Open City

Year Of Release: 1945

Director: Roberto Rossellini

Notes from viewing number 1 (26.10.2021)

Rating: 10/10

- My first film from Rossellini, the most influential director of the Italian neo-realist movement. I have watched two films from De Sica, those being Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D, and those were great heartbreaking masterpieces. And so was this one.

- Rome, Open City may be the most influential of all neo-realist films, as it was the film that really kicked i off. I guess you could say some of the work of Visconti was what kicked it off, but it was Open City that brought it into the mainstream and truly made the movement so influential.

- This is a brutally honest film. It tells the story of resistance-fighters in Italy during World War II, and does so with great empathy and amazing craft.

- Anna Magnani gives an incredible performance. It's really subtle, but still speaks incredibly loud. The death of her character remains one of the most iconic and powerful performances in Italian cinema.

- The torture scene was and still is shockingly brutal for 1945. This is the moment the viewer really realizes that there is no glamour in this film, only brutal and hard-to-swallow truth.

- The final image of the children sadly marching into Rome is a powerful one, and one that speaks louder than words.