Germany Year Zero 1948

The final film in Roberto Rossellini’s “War Trilogy” takes place in a devastated Berlin after the defeat of the Nazi machine. Once a glorious city it is now a unrelenting rotting ruin. The focus of the film that almost has the feel of a documentary, a given with Neo-Realist films is a sad family trying to survive among all the horrors of what Nazi Germany has brought down on their heads. The family is sharing a cramped apartment with many others and should bring to mind what the victims of Nazi Germany had to live and die through, and how our feelings or at least mine were torn between hatred for them, and despair for the 12 year old gentle boy who is the focus of the film. 12 year old Edmund prowls among the ruins of the city trying to find some work and food to bring home to his family and in one searing moment he tries to get some meat off a dead horse as it lies in the street and that is being picked apart by other desperate Berliners. His father is sick and helpless and will eventually meet his fate at the hands of his young son who shares this horrible place with a pretty sister who also prowls among the bars and night hours of the city trying to find substance and hope while flirting with the possibility of prostitution. The final member is the oldest son a soldier on the lam who is a lout and a loser having escaped from the final days of defeat and now lives in fear of being arrested. All are former Nazi’s including Edmund who was no doubt indoctrinated in school and the Nazi Youth gangs.  The film is a river of sadness and despair and the scenes of the bombed out city shock. Edmund is constantly put upon and set upon by various predators including a Nazi pedophilic former teacher of his, and teen age crooks, prostitutes and black marketers. He has no peace as he climbs on the rotten ruins of the city. There are a few other films that have showed the ruins, rot and destruction of Germany including the black comedies “A Foreign Affair” and “I was a Male War Bride” but neither one has the brutal hammering of this masterwork by Rossellini. Cast with non professional actors this is a great addition to films about the perils of childhood that include “Night Of The Hunter” “The Little Fugitive” and “Curse of The Cat People among many others.