Germany Year Zero

Germany Year Zero
Directed by Roberto Rossellini

Citizens fight for survival in the nightmarish devastation of post-World War II Berlin in this towering masterpiece of Italian neorealist cinema from groundbreaking director Robert Rossellini. Twelve-year-old Edmund, a child who has known only upheaval and terror, wanders from day to day trying to help his family and find money or food on the streets. One day he meets his former schoolteacher, who now profits from Nazi propaganda, and sets in motion a shocking new chain of violence. Filled with haunting imagery and unforgettable performances by real local citizens, this unflinching look at a country wracked with guilt and confusion will never leave your memory.

------------
Amazon Customers Reviews:

Filmed amid the spectral ruins of Berlin in 1947, and cast with actual residents of the rubble-strewn capital city, Rossellini's harrowing portrait of war's catastrophic impact on everyday people is a haunting classic of Italian neo-realism. Of particular interest is the character of Herr Enning, an ambiguous figure with vaguely pederastic leanings, whose worldview has been unalterably twisted by Nazi ideology. When he gives Edmund a set of tapes--speeches by Hitler--for him to sell on the black market, he also dispenses a bit of corrosive advice about the weak and the strong that Edmund takes, tragically, very much to heart. "Zero" in on this brutal, yet heartrending drama.
--------------
Incredible
Masterful work of Italian neo-realism by the grand old man, Roberto Rossellini and filmed in war-torn Berlin and widely regarded as the precursor to Rossellini's 50's masterpieces.

A young boy is manipulated by his teacher who later turns out to be an appalling Nazi sympathizer who manipulates the boy into murdering his father.

Mesmerizing and always stylized and breathtaking form. This film conveys the horror and destructive inevitability of war far better than the gross Hollywood extravaganza's of the Longest Day variety.

Rossellini was criticized by the neo-realists for injecting greater melodrama and lighting control than was though appropriate, but the film still exists in a magnificent documentary style, and it runs circles around DeSica's Umberto D.
--------------
Devastating statement!
This seminal, absorbing and arresting picture preceded by far, the famous ones Zinemmann `s The Search (1947), Joseph Losey 's The boy with the green hair (1948) and Rene Clement ` s Forbidden Games(1953). And comparing in what stature artistic concerns it with Andrei Tarkovsky `s Ivan childhood is just one echelon bellow, equaled with Forbidden games. .
I have seen them all these in the last two months and I can tell you with all the possible objectivity. This is another magisterial masterpiece of the Italian Realism. There is no way out along this struggling and gradually increasing tension. A true slap in the face that will make you think around a lot of things. An ethic deficit, perhaps?