Ogosmith
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Paynbob
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Kirpianuscus
it is the right choice to admire it from the artistic perspective. but this represents one of many options. and, maybe, the useful way to discover this special film is the reflection of near reality. not only in the context of the WW II. because the message remains painful because it is a slice of contemporary reality. because the purposes - survive and need to impose the rules against society rules is the same. nothing different. nothing out of well known forms. and this does a gem of neo-realism more than a good example of cinema. but support for see , in profound manner, the near every day reality. to understand. the war, the survive, the situation of a boy among the shadows of war, the meanings of year zero for the conflict zones, the hope as more than noble emotion.
ScorpioVelvet
By the time the Second World War ended and the neorealist movement grew large, Roberto Rossellini was wrapping up his little so-called "war trilogy" with Germany Year Zero (1948). Shot entirely in Germany, the film deals with a boy struggling to grow up in a post-war Berlin along with his family. Every moment in this film is like seeing the reality of going through a life-changing experience on how you live & deal with those problems, but also leaves you both moved & stunned after having to see it the first time. Edmund Meschke's performance as little Edmund (the film's protagonist) is memorable and heartbreaking by how his character portrays in this story, while Robert Jullard's cinematography is masterfully crafted by its long takes & realistic feels with some music by Renzo Rossellini fitting in the moods. This film is one of Rossellini's most personal because his son died young while working on his trilogy and then he created Edmund for which is the main character being focused on besides other things in that world. What is even more interesting was the fact that Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) was also released the same year Germany, Year Zero came out so both films were perfect for that era because neorealism was already becoming cinema's next art. In 2002, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Haneke named this classic as one of his ten all- time favorite films for Sight & Sound's Greatest Films Poll, which is awesome to describe the film's impact after its first release. So far I can say about this postwar drama: "Wow." Even greater than Rome, Open City (1944) (which I have seen, too) but better & far more moving.My Rating: 5/5
gavin6942
A young German boy (Edmund Moeschke) faces the problems of the tough life in the immediate post WWII Berlin.This film was in many ways vastly different from Rossellini's previous neo-realism films, in that it was mostly shot in a studio and used rear screen projections for the Berlin scenes. Many critics who had previously championed Rossellini condemned the film for being melodramatic and disappointingly unrealistic.What I find most alluring about this film is just the subject matter. The cast speaks German, which is good and adds to the realism. But we must wonder what it was like growing up in the late 1940s in Germany. Your country is destroyed, the government in shambles and you are surrounded by the most hated people in the world. Adults who have to live with their actions is one thing, but what of the child who has to deal with consequences beyond his control?
Koundinya
The last of Roberto Rossellini's 'War Trilogy' movies and it couldn't have been better. The movie is filmed in the backdrop of an obliterated Berlin where the survivors of the war fight for survival. The center character is that of a boy who makes a futile attempt to get a job and make money and keep his family of 4 meet the bills. They live at the mercy of the Rademakers. The boy, having failed to get a job, meets his former teacher who makes the boy trade his goods to the Americans. The boy befriends a girl, who despite being in her early teens, solicit to make a living(though not explicitly shown). The women in his house, his sister and the daughters of the Rademakers too date the Americans to earn a little money. The gullible boy gets persuaded by his pedophile teacher to end the life of his ailing father, how only the fittest deserve to survive; plants a sapling in the brain of the boy the Nazi principle of eugenics. The boy poisons his father to his death. After having realized what heinous crime he had committed, the boy commits suicide due to guilt.The movie is well-written and the director's attempt to bring to the silver screen the struggle of those who'd lived through the war only to live in dilapidated buildings, no fixed job, no steady income and stricken by poverty is laudable.
