Movie Review - Open City

Roma, città aperta (1945)
directed by Roberto Rossellini
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Well, for one, I'm surprised that this was made in 1945. Because in that same year the US produced such pithy patriotic junk gems as Objective, Buhrma! and The Story of G.I. Joe. Well, and Fallen Angel, which isn't about the war at all but still a movie I love very much. But Italy had just been invaded by the Allies a year or so before, and "Open City" is so generous, and its hurt so personal. How could Ingrid Bergman resist?

"You can't really make an anti-war movie. You can only show people being monstrous to one another. What you do with that - how you reconcile cheapness and cruelty with the fact that you probably know some men and women you'd give up everything for - is how you celebrate the travails of getting by."

A Christmas message from Nate-flix to you

Because, you know, what else can I say?