Paisa (1946)

Set during the waning days of WWII in Italy as the Allies push their way through Italy as the Germans retreat. Directed by Roberto Rossellini, the film is divided into six unrelated episodes, each showing a different facet of war. The film is greatly admired and while I liked it, I found it disappointing. The acting, which consists mostly of non professionals, is generally awful especially the stilted performances of the monochromatic English speaking "actors". As with all episodic films, the tone is uneven. My two favorites were the third and fourth segments: in the third episode, an American soldier (Gar Moore) and a young Italian girl (Maria Michi) meet briefly and connect with each other. But many months later when they meet again, the war has changed them so much that they don't recognize each other. It's simple and direct and poignant. The fourth episode has an American nurse (Harriet Medin) and an Italian man (Renzo Avanzo) going through the German held area of Florence for their own personal reasons. It's tense and has a tragic payoff. My least favorite was the second segment involving a black soldier (Dots Johnson) and an Italian street waif (Alfonsino Pasca) which I found too obvious. The fifth episode set in a Catholic monastery puzzled me. Were we supposed to find the bigoted and anti-Semitic monks sympathetic? This was second of Rossellini's war trilogy and I found it the least of the three films.