Rome, Open City (1945)

This review was written after seeing Rome, Open City during the fall semester of my sophomore year at college. My overall rating for the film was 3.5 stars out of a possible 4. On my scale, 3.5 stars qualifies as "very good."

This was a very good film. For one thing, it has resurrected my opinion of the Italian Neorealist movement. I won’t go on another Bicycle Thieves bashing, but this film really does give me hope that Vittorio de Sica’s “masterpiece” is really just a fluke for the movement.

This film has two parts, which works to its advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is that, for the audience, it presents a clear separation between the storyline of the first and the second parts. This is not saying that it completely abandons the first part and all that occurs during it, rather that it makes it clear that, from a character’s point of view, no matter how affected they may be by the final events of part one, their duty calls for them to press on. The disadvantage is that the second part of the film does not measure anywhere near the first part in cohesiveness, quality, and impressiveness. And even this works in the film’s favor, where it can only be faulted for its second part and not the first and second part combined.

Now, the acting is phenomenal and certainly the highlight of the film. And it is not just one actor or actress either. Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, and Marcello Pagliero, the three “leads” of the film are just as impressive as the child actors and the smallest of characters. In this regard, it is probably the closest thing to Casablanca (1942), where the acting is superb all the way from the top to the bottom and back up again. But even with its impressive thespian prowess, the loss of Magnani’s character at the end of the first part certainly harms the film’s second part. It’s clear to see why this film made her a superstar and legend of Italian cinema.

Perhaps the real problem with the second part of the film is just that it is not quite as tight of a story, and compounding that with two other aspects afflicting it, the film as a whole unfortunately takes a dive. The first additional aspect that hinders film's second part is the presence of the film's only two poor performances, those of Marina and Lauretta (Maria Michi and Carla Rovere, respectively). The second additional aspect is the sudden loss of all personal and intimate connections between the characters and the audience, which was consequently replaced with a sudden fear and worry for the characters while not affording the audience the ability to properly assimilate to this fear for themselves, too. In the first part, the audience feels that they are experiencing everything in stride with the characters before them, but with the sudden jump in tone in the second part, the audience feels that they are merely observers of what is happening before them rather than experiencing the torment alongside the characters.

I must admit, at the end of the first part, even though I was concerned as to how well the film would hold up without Magnani, I thought that the film was one of the fifty most impressive and greatest films I had ever seen. But as I mentioned just one paragraph ago, my concern for the quality of the film rang true; the film was not only in peril but faced irreparable harm from the loss of Pina. The first part of the film is 4 stars, but the second part of the film is 3 stars, which evens out to the 3.5 stars that the film was given.