#84 of 2010: Rome, Open City

The setting (filming began only two months after the Nazis were driven from the country, the year after the story takes place) and concerns (with the responsibilities and risks, desires and decisions, the adaptability- for better or worse- of regular people in dire circumstances) of "Rome, Open City" are decidedly neorealist. Though not strictly faithful to that sub-genre, the scriptedness of Fellini's meticulous character development pairs wonderfully with the deft, professional, sincere, and sometimes even over-emotional (especially in Anna Magnini's case) acting, and the result is a perfectly distilled story with honest reality as a backdrop. As for the look of the film, Rossellini sure has an eye for composing a scene. Seen in context, after traveling through a story full of death-by-injustice, this final preparation is devastating:

As always, it is heart-rending to watch a truly good man (even a fictional one, though i'm sure the priest depicted here has historical counterparts) abruptly ceasing to exist at the hands of despicable forces. The visual composition here mangles the edges of the initial wound past the point of healing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_Open_City

#73 of 2010: I'm Not Scared

after reading some of the facts about the setting of this film (which were not made explicit in the movie), i get the feeling that there is more here for Italians than for the international crowd. it's like setting a film that's not about slavery in the 1850's in America: we're gonna automatically figure that historical moment in as we watch the specific story unfold. but in "I'm Not Scared"s case, i would have had no idea that the 70's was a particularly dangerous decade for Italy, when assasinations and kidnappings were relatively common. national implied history aside, the narrative is generally heartwarming, culminating in the main character (a ten-year-old who you couldn't convince me was less than twelve by the looks of him) demonstrating incredible altruism and compassion in defiance of the selfishness and violence of the adults in his life. there is a bit too much maudlin music and the slow motion hand grasp of the ending is sort of terrible, but the film breaks even overall, because it is SO much FUN watching the brother and sister gesticulate and bicker. i feel like children can sometimes act as lovable caricatures of cultural habits (after all, they are in the process of learning their own culture), and these kids do a fierce whole-hand point, a mannerism i've come to know as particularly Italian. "I'm Not Scared" ends up falling somewhere between recommended and not, so you decide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_not_scared