DVDs in Review

Rome, Open City

Title: Rome Open City (Roma, Citta Aperta) (1945)

Release date: March 15 2010

Certificate: 12

Format: DVD

DVD RRP: £15.99

Rating: 5/5

If there's one film that spearheads the neorealist film movement, it's Roberto Rossellini's 'Rome, Open City', the classic set in Rome during the Nazi occupation of 1944 which tells the tale of the small resistance army in typical documentary-style fashion.

It's this jerky, intrusive camerawork and naturalistic acting (even going so far as cast non-actors) that give the neorealist films their initial drive. It feels real, voyeuristic and alive with all the detail, flavour and mistakes (even un-interesting parts) of life that make the world what it is.

But unlike other films of this genre, say Vittorio de Sica's 1952 neorealist masterpiece 'Umberto D', there is a powerful plot which propels these little world truths. The story of the priests and atheists bonding together to fend off the Nazis anyway they can is a potent one, and one which leads to a shocking and unshakably memorable coda.

There may be an overtly clear divide between good and evil, which would often mar a film's realism and level of characterisation, but Rossellini takes this melodramatic approach and places his archetypes in front of the actual rubble and devastation that the Nazis left in their wake (they shot the film in early 1945).

When the film opened, the world was still getting over the war in its immediate aftermath, which would've only made the film more powerful, but as war is often ongoing between one nation and another, films of this potency rarely lose their relevance.

Make no mistake, 'Rome, Open City' is a message film, and it doesn't portray the enemy with many human qualities either. But in addition to being so vital, it also showed the film world how a newsreel-esque aesthetic using natural lighting and even scraps of photographers' film patched in could be used  to encapsulate and intensify a scene's power, not just report on it.

Arrow Films have brought out this re-release, that contains a commentary with Peter Bonadella, a documentary 'The Children of Rome Open City' and another doc dedicated to Rossellini. Also included are some intriguing original world war two theatre broadcasts.