elvircorhodzic PAISAN is structurally omnibus. It consists of six different stories unfolding in Italy during the Italian campaign. Basically all the stories have common motifs and themes. Linguistic, cultural, religious and environmental barriers between the allied troops and the Italian population. The atmosphere and scenery are targeted certain to demonstrate the consequences of the war through the destruction of the fascists, hunger, poverty, crime, prostitution and unified pain. I could go on forever to convey thoughts, but the truth is that this movie is difficult to explain. Italian neorealism in action. Almost on the verge of a documentary. Therefore act so real and true. Improvisation in acting and dialogue is more than obvious. This film has a sad and empty tone. A bit of conscience, maybe. Each story can be seen as a random incident that accompany disappointment, irony and fear. Relations between people in times of war are also credible processed.After each story, I asked for some ulterior motive. In the end I realized that in fact nothing is puzzling. Stories are very simple and clear. Each is finished without superfluous words.Nothing here is not too dramatic, nor is it connected. Without culmination and turning. The effect is quite disturbing. In war everything is clear, everything is acceptable and that fact sound frightening

gavin6942 Communication is fragile. A woman leads an Allied patrol through a mine field; she dies protecting a G.I., but the Yanks think she killed him. A street urchin steals shoes from a G.I. who tracks him to a shanty town. A G.I. meets a woman the day Rome is liberated; in six months they meet again: he's cynical, she's a prostitute. A US nurse braves the trip across the Arno into German fire in search of a partisan she loves. Three chaplains, including a Jew, call on a monastery north in the Apennines. Allied soldiers and partisans try to escape capture in the marshes of the Po.Rossellini engaged six writers, each of whom was to write one episode: Klaus Mann, Marcello Pagliero, Sergio Amidei, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hayes, and Vasco Pratolini. Each episode took place in a different location. The script notwithstanding, Rossellini often improvised with the actors and rewrote the stories as they were being filmed. For the first episode filmed in Sicily, Rossellini discarded the script and coached the non-professional, illiterate lead actress Carmela Sazio to a performance that received critical praise.I love the variety of views on World War II. What is especially interesting is how we start with the point of view of the Allies. For much of the war, Italy was not an Ally but was ruled by Mussolini, who gravitated towards Hitler. (Though Italy was the least "evil" of Germany, Japan and Italy.) So this film seemingly champions the recent enemy...

cking-37-372041 **spoiler alert** Paisa is a vivid example of Italian Neo-Realism. I found this movie interesting, but also very heart wrenching, and sad thorough out most of the film. The film first captures the audience with a bar fight between two females fighting over a soldier. Then quickly moves to a different scene of soldiers being welcomed to town by a group of locals. The plot thickens as one of these soldiers is welcomed upstairs by a youthful female for water. They begin speaking but their time is cut short due to the soldiers duties, but it is very clear that these characters are already mesmerized by each other. Without skipping a beat, the movie quickly jumps to another plot of a women attempting to find her husband during a war. I feel that Rossellini captures the realism here with the staging of the scene. The war has ravaged most of the town's buildings creating a "ghost town", and the hysteria of the people is shown as they move through the town fearful of their lives. The black and white shooting of this film helps display a dark, critical time in the everyday lives of the soldiers and commoners. The buildings are falling apart; the paver's show stains of blood, the soldiers wait in suspense for another battle. The film continues to showcase drama, and intensifies as the women faces not knowing if her loved one is alive or deceased. Although, she hears different stories of her husband's location and details she continues seeking help from soldiers and a friend after hiding with commoners inside a building. The film remains suspenseful and shows the lady finding her husband, but sees her friend hurt in the process. After all of this the film returns to the first "love story", but ultimately ends horribly due to the war. This film is one of the best war movies I have seen. Although it jumps to different stories each one is related due to the war; showcasing the effects war has on our species.

Robert J. Maxwell I'd caught snippets of this over the years but settled in recently to watch it from beginning to end. It's a turn off at first. The images are grainy, the budget could crawl under a duck's belly, to borrow a trope, and the gestures towards professional acting are perfunctory, especially in the case of the non-Italians. On top of that -- and here I'm thinking of today's kids -- the whole thing is in black and white, there's not a recognizable face on the screen, and there are plenty of SUBTITLES. Enough to make any young person weaned on remakes of remakes, filled with computer-generated effects, weep with abandon.But if you stick with it, you are drawn into the six vignettes as, one by one, they spell out the travails of Italian citizens and partisans in the course of the Italian campaign, from Sicily to the Po. And half the dialog is actually in English.The contents of the six episodes are spelled out elsewhere -- the plot summary, for instance, so there's no real reason to go over them again. Each carries some sort of existential lesson. The German soldiers may kill Carmela but the American soldiers blame her for a comrade's death. People misunderstand one another out of carelessness or lack of effort.The African-American GI may be thoroughly browned off when a street urchin steals his boots, but when he follows the kid home to retrieve them, and sees the miserable conditions under which the orphan's neighbors live, he drops the shoes and walks off, perhaps a little ashamed at having complained of his own poverty at home.The most enlightening (and the funniest) episode involves three American chaplains visiting an ancient monastery in Northern Italy. The otherworldly monks quietly welcome the American visitors and use the gifts the GIs brought with them to prepare a feast in their honor -- or rather what passes for a feast in a bleak and barely post-war monastery. At prayer, only one of the chaplains participates, the one who speaks Italian. One of the monks asks why the other two didn't pray and the chaplain explains that one is a Protestant and the other a Jew. A dog, a panic in a pagoda! The monks have heard of Protestantism and Judaism but have never set eyes on any exemplars. They scurry around like mice, spreading the word, responding in mixed ways, but in the end deciding to forgo their participation in the elaborate dinner. They will fast while their guests eat, hoping that by this small sacrifice the two unbelievers will some day see the light and achieve salvation. The Catholic chaplain makes a short speech explaining that the other two are among his dearest friends but that he has learned the true meaning of faith during his brief time at the monastery. The episode ends on this ambiguous (and grown-up) note.The last episode ends tragically, a downbeat climax that one wishes had contained some note of hope.Put up with the lack of money and the clumsy performances and let's see if we can learn something too.