Dir: Roberto Rossellini | Historical Drama 126’
Reviewed by Richard Chatten
Described by Georges Sadoul as “A journal in six episodes of the Battle of Italy from 1943 to 1945” with a cast of non-professionals. ‘Paisa’ begins with the body of a partisan floating in a river, after which the film moves across the mainland concluding in the Po Valley.
Along the way taking in a wide variety of human circumstances such a drunken GI having a fling with a local girl and three American chaplains welcomed by the monks of a monastery. While the most dynamic is probably the scene in which Harriet Medin runs through the streets of Florence in search of her lover; the most realistic detail probably being the wrinkled uniform worn by the German officer overseeing the final depiction of the summary executions of a group of partisans.
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