Paisan

Paisan (1946) starring Carmela Sazio, Gar Moore, Bill Tubbs, Harriet White, Maria Michi. Directed by Roberto Rossellini. This movie is one of Rossellini's neorealist films, which takes a look at conditions in Italy near the end of World War II. In this case, he looks at the Allied invasion of Italy, starting in Sicily and working its way up the peninsula. His object is to illustrate the problems that were caused when the liberators (mostly Americans who spoke only English) were unable to communicate effectively with the Italians they were liberating. My problem with this film is mainly that when the Americans spoke, their English was not subtitled, and I could rarely understand what they were saying. So I missed out on a large part of the movie. Nevertheless, there was enough that I could understand that I was able to get the gist of most of the scenes, and I really felt that this film had a lot to say. It's an episodic movie, told in six parts, and each part takes place a little further north in Italy. Some of the episodes were better than others, but in general they were very well done. The film is mostly in Italian, with English subtitles. Grade: A-