Why You Should Watch Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)

Courtesy of the Medium

The film is marked as the first product of the Italian Neorealism film movement. This movement matters because almost all the previous films before this film were released, they were all under the production of Benito Mussolini, a Fascist regime who aim to use cinema as a weapon to control the people (like most others military leader usually do). Most of these films’ values were aligned with fascist rule and alienated to Italy’s identity. They were trying to show what an idealized world under fascist control would be like (all those bourgeois wealth) while the country was deep in hunger and poverty.

Neorealism is an attempt to show the world as to how it is by avoiding any kind of romanticization, on-location shooting, using locals instead of professional actors, and using real historical events as the basis of the film’s plot.

If all these have not convinced you to watch Rome, Open City yet, but in case you have not noticed the film is released during World War II! Rome was the first city to be liberated in 1944 and Rossellini started shooting the film two months right after the war. The film got him in huge debt as his previous film distributor nulled the contract, claiming that what was produced is not a film! (I mean if all those previous films were about the romanticism of the country and this film in contrast to every aspect you regard as a film, well…) Also, he has to buy the film rolls in black markets and was not able to see the film until it is finished! God bless digital cameras and CGI.

Last but certainly not the least, Rossellini captured the stories in such an important time in human history that could never be captured again.