DAY THREE

During today's class we watched Paisan, the second film in Rossellini's War Trilogy. I found this film very rewarding and very emotional. Certainly a film that will stay with me for a while; it demands your attention and participation.

The script of this film is very interesting. The characters speak in three languages: Italian, English and German. There are many conversations throughout the film where one character is speaking in Italian and the other in English. This language barrier will often hinder the conversation at the beginning, but then a mutual understanding will shine through. Perhaps that the commonality of the characters, that they are going through the same struggles and experiencing the hardship of the war gives them a sense of kinship that cannot be obstructed by language. This is a beautiful sentiment and one of my favourite scenes was the conversation between Joe the MP and Pasquale the small child. Despite not having a language in common, they still manage to share a bond and laugh together on a pile of rubble in the middle of war-torn Italy.

I like that non-actors were chosen, however some of the performances were a bit lack-lustre. For example, in the first episode the American soldiers were not very convincing and at times it was a bit tedious listening to them recite their lines.

The film is very stimulating and poses many ideas:

War is unnatural

This seems to be the resounding message of the film. War is inexplicable and makes people behave in ways that they should not. War brings out the true nature people and forces them to act in an unfamiliar and horrifying environment. Rossellini highlights the awful nature of war by giving us glimpses of hope and faith in mankind, and then taking it away.

War reverberates through everyone

Every corner of society is affected by war, even the monastry can feel its effects. Everyone suffers, they may have different sufferances and different ways of dealing with them, but everyone suffers during the way. Perhaps this notion of individuality and the various challenges and obstacles that people face during war is highlighted by the different episodes. Each of these follows a different person and their plights to emphasise war as an individual suffering, not just a whole country. We see the war from the perspective of common people, everyday people who are not heroes but are fighting their own battles.

Did war galvanise insular Italian society?

What does it now mean to be Italian? Does the war bring people together in their sufferances? The divide between North and South, for example, may disappear as they unite to fight a common enemy. Will this sense of patriotism still be there after the war? These are the questions which Rossellini seems to pose.

As in Rome, Open City, this film is a tapestry of different filming techniques which are combined to create a rich experience. There is a newsreel at the beginning of each episode and a shaky camera is used sporadically throughout the film. The close-ups allow us to see the small details, each individual suffering of the characters, and the long shots show the bigger picture. What all the devastation is causing.

The use of location is also very important in Paisan, especially as a Neorealist film. It is set in a disparate set of locations, rural and urban, busy and abandoned. Again this shows us how far-reaching the war is.

This film is very moving. It stayed with me and made me think about what I was being presented with, I was not just handed a message on a platter. It is poignant and confronting. Each of the six episodes offer a new perspective. However, despite their differences, ttogether the episodes comprehensively portray war as horrible, difficult and unjust.

NOTES