Rome Open City is a good film, but it is clearly a far more historically important film than an artistically great one (the predominance of hagiography and agitprop make this almost inevitable). Too many times its lead characters, be they Italians or Germans, good guys or bad guys, fall into stereotypes, and the action plunges into melodrama. Pina's senseless death is the best example, as she would truly have to be stupid to do such a thing in real life, with her son right there. But, it does set up the rest of the film's drama and narrative pieces. And there can be some rightful criticism of the film's dishonest portrayal of the Italian Resistance (which was virtually nothing in comparison to the French Resistance), culpability for the Second World War, and relative prosperity and lack of internal destruction versus other European nations. Nonetheless, the film did sweep the Cannes Film Festival and many others worldwide, and it has a number of touches that redeem its clichés, such as having Don Pietro's glasses be broken so that he can only hear, not see, Manfredi's slow death, or the literal killing of two lambs by the Nazis right before Marina betrays Manfredi, which, in its rendering is far more affecting than in its mere description. It should also be mentioned that in a brief scene, an Italian tot's naked bottom half (including genitalia) is shown, which both adds to the claims of realism, and satisfies the dramatic arc of the moment, highlighting how silly most censored scenes and moments in film are. Rome Open City does not broach greatness, but it does entertain and inspire, even almost two thirds of a century after its conception, and sometimes that's something which has even more effect than hermetic greatness. So, ciao, and it's on to Paisan!
Review of Rome, Open City
