It's in two parts and that's appropriate because it's really two films. Part one is an absolutely brilliant combination of location shooting, action and character exposition, all coming together in that riveting apartment complex sequence, with Nazis searching for resistance fighters as tension mounts and peoples' lives are shattered, and culminating in the death of the movie's most interesting character, Anna Magnani's large souled, earthy, pregnant bride to be. If part one is true to the ethos of the film's title then part two, set mostly in SS interrogation rooms, could be called "Nazi Headquarters, Closed To Outside World". And while it's not a bad film it's certainly one we've seen before with cartoonishly evil Germans, plus the obligatory One Thoughtful Self Hating German, all headed by the lesbo female seductress who looks like she wandered in off the set of "Cabaret"( and who bears an absurd resemblance to Sandra Bernhardt!). Suddenly we've left the neo realism of Rossellini and have anticipated by 50 years the mannered fantasy land of Tarantino. Don't know about you, but I was a bit dismayed. So for the first hour and Magnani as well as Rossellini's making us feel we've been taken back in time and space to the Eternal City in WW2, let's give this one a B plus.
Review of Rome, Open City
