MovieChat Forums > Germania anno zero (1949) Discussion > Grim (spoilers)

Grim (spoilers)

posted 13 years ago by I_Aint_No_Prophet
6 replies | jump to latest

This has to be one of the darkest films I've ever seen, especially for the late-'40s. I was stunned by how much Rossellini got away with... pedophilia, prostitution, patricide, suicide (a child's, at that) that was shown rather than implied. It was surprising that he even tried to objectively show sympathy for former Nazis whose postwar lives were ruined by the obligation to either follow orders or face the consequences of the Reich. Another bit that surprised me was the teenage girl who sees young women prostituting themselves in exchange for cigarettes and, in turn, displays her naive misunderstanding of this by having sex with young boys and giving them cigarettes. A very depressing film.

"Why do you find it so hard to believe?"
"Why do you find it so easy?"
"It's never BEEN easy!"

[–] notmtwain 13 years ago

You're right. I found myself wondering where the "Marshall Plan" was. I looked it up and those dollars didn't start flowing until 1948. This film, released in late 1948, shows how grim things must have been in the first few years after the war.

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

Yeah, it´s really hardcore stuff and an allaround excellent film that really makes the devastation and desperation amidst the rubble, living with the consequences, cruelly palpable. Surprising how good the acting was, too, by these amateurs none of whom seems to have appeared in anything else besides this film. Should really see more of this Rossellini fella.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] Errington_92 12 years ago

Grimness and Italian Neo - Realism go hand in hand, they are never happy endings which makes them all the more powerful. There was a real sense in Germany Year Zero of the hallowing effect the failed ideal of Nazism/The Third Reich, some people living in bitter resentment. The panning shots of the destroyed buildings as the Hitler record was playing was a fine example of these people who could not move on.

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".

[–] henrimaine 12 years ago

"teenage girl who sees young women prostituting themselves in exchange for cigarettes and, in turn, displays her naive misunderstanding of this by having sex with young boys and giving them cigarettes."

Was that really what was happening? I didn't get it. The young girl who was hanging around with the boys was a bit strange character, but was she really having sex with all those boys (including the main character)? And giving them cigarettes for it?

But anyway, great film. And a great historical document.

[–] Eponymous-too 11 years ago

That poster got it partially right and partially wrong. She WAS sleeping with boys for cigarettes just like the older women were, but she wasn't giving the cigiarettes to boys. (Where would she be getting them?) She just did with the main character, probably because she knew it was his first time or because she was trying to make him feel better about not knowing what to do.

"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider."

[–] chrissso 9 years ago

Given this was a fairly accurate depiction of life in post-war Berlin ... sans the sensationalist use of pedophilia ... just what did RR get away with? I mean there was a whole lotta resentment towards the Third Reich in 48 in Europe.