Germany Year Zero (1948)

Unflinching is the word that best describes Rossellini's Germany Year Zero. It might have taken me two screenings to realize how great this film really is, but when I think back on it now I am impressed not only by its famous depiction of a war-stricken city, but also by the deadpan acting by the very young protagonist, whose presence on screen betrays no hint of sentimentality. For me, this film is very different from Rome, Open City which had a much more conventional emotional and narrative structure.

The protagonist's family struggles with poverty. Dad is sick and the sister may be a prostitute. Edmund hustles goods and tries to look for a job, but he is too young. He drifts through the traumatized city, trying to make a buck. We get the immediate sense that his fate is shared by many, many others. The camera pans on the streets on Berlin. Rubble and starving people. Bombed buildings and desperation.

Germany Year Zero has no character development, no story to talk about. It follows Edmund's wanderings through the city and registers his encounters with young criminals, children his own age and a former teacher who has a dubious interest in kids. The only consolation the film offers is the purity of its testimony. It might seem strange to talk about testimony given that this is a fictional narrative, but the approach of the film elicits that concept - testimony. The concept of testimony shows the moral urgency at hand. To talk about testimony is also perhaps to say that these images are connected with a specific responsibility with regard to how something is said, or revealed. I am not sure what status one should lend to the fact that Rossellini used non-professional actors who have lived in the same kind of environment. What matters the most is, I think, the emotional rawness of the film, the way it takes one to the end of the world, so the speak, a world in which there is no hope, no future, no possibilities. I think I have seen no other film in which grief resonates so ravagingly. I wouldn't judge this film from the perspective of technicalities ('innovations' of the neo-realist traditions and how they have fared today) but rather in what way the perspective still rings true.