So this movie, made in 1945, is set during the Nazi occupation of Rome, and is all about the brave Italian resistance to Nazi perfidy. Which, uh, okay, yes, that happened, but I’ll be honest, it seems more than a little self-exonerating/flattering for that to be the iconic imagery of Italy that comes out of WW2, you know?

But so yeah, the movie traces a handful of characters, woven together with complex interrelationships, starting with the Nazi search for one of them, and seeing how that spirals outward into other people getting caught into their net, and being willing to betray the resistance or not. In broad outline, the story is pretty basic, but Rossellini really captures the realism of the people in it. They don’t just feel like members of the resistance, they feel like people who are living their lives in a shitty situation and who are being forced to make choices about what they can and can’t live with.

This is allegedly the founding movie of Italian neo-realism, but I think it’s one of those things where later movies really heightened the trends it started, because whereas Bicycle Thieves is absolutely and unquestionably full of the social issues and amateur actors that are the hallmarks of the movement, this one has some of that, but also has a lot of wartime intrigue melodrama and professional leads.

Overall, though, yeah, this is a legit classic, and definitely among the handful of WW2 films worth watching.