SnoopyStyle It's six vignettes of the Allied invasion of Italy. There is humor, romance, poignancy, drama and most of all there is tragedy. Together the six stories stitch together a mosaic that is hopefully as enduring as one of the great artwork of history.An American recon squad enters a Sicilian village. One of them comes from a Sicilian background. Local girl Carmela guides them past German mines taking shelter in an old ruin. Joe stays with Carmela as the rest of the squad explores and they are surprised by a small squad of Germans. Carmela Sazio is very stiff as an actress. She's an amateur and there's value in that. However her character has a lot of emoting to do and she has trouble doing it.A group of street performing kids in Naples find drunken negro soldier Joe. Pasquale takes him around and they have an adventure. The poor kid steals from him. He turns out to be an MP and later he finds Pasquale. He is angry and drags Pasquale back home. The poverty of his home convinces Joe to leave him the boots. The kids are terrific and in this case, it's unlikely to get better actor than this amateur kid.In a liberated Rome, American GI Fred spends the night with prostitute Francesca. He has been searching for a woman he met 6 months ago and she realizes that she's actually that woman. This is a great story but I'm not sure it's set up right. It would be great to see them 6 months earlier.Half of Florence is liberated. All but one bridge has been blown and the partisans are struggling against the Germans. American nurse Harriet is desperate to get across to find her love. She is joined by Massimo looking for his family. The location shoot of them sneaking around an abandoned Florence is amazing.A monastery escapes damage from the war and is visited by three American chaplains. Catholic Captain Bill Martin translates but the monks are shocked to find the other two are a Protestant and a Jew. The monks intent on converting the two disbelievers.It's the closing stage of the war in Europe, American OSS and Italian partisans are struggling behind German lines in the Po delta. Supplies are dwindling and the fight is deadly. They rescue two downed British airmen. They are ambushed and captured. This is the most brutal of the stories and it ends the movie with its most brutal scenes.

cocomariev Robert Rossellini series of short stories will have you at the edge of your seat. From romance to action, each story vividly portrays the Italian Neo-realist style. Paisan touches base on documentary, society and politics. I think that Rossellini did great job at hiring non- professional actors in order to incorporate them within the backdrop of the scenes. The storyline was also very detailed and made it seem like it was more of a documentary than an actual fictional film. The movie had me guessing at some points which kept me interested throughout the film. I noticed that Rossellini left room for us to fill in the story, letting us take on our own interpretation on things. For example, in each of the stories we don't really know much about the protagonist and I found myself creating their backgrounds in my mind. He did a wonderful job at inspiring emotion whether it be positive or negative. I have to admit that before I watched this film in class I was a bit skeptical. I definitely think that it portrays great characteristics of of neo- realism. One of the scenes that I thought was really interesting was when the baby is alone with no one to comfort or take care of him/her. It made me extremely sad but did a great job at illustrating the nature of war. He did a great job at illustrating Italy during World War II. I thought he provided several elements for us to choose from, giving us something to relate to and become emotionally attached to. Rossellini did a fantastic job at creating and directing a film that seemed extremely real. He blurred the lines between documentary and fiction beautifully. Now I see why he was very respected for his films.

wadih_ws Roberto Rossellini's Paisan was a war drama film that basically depressed me. Because it was a long film with five episodes of depression, since people all have a misfortune happen to them in the end. Even more because its lack of a happy ending is what depressed me, but its not part of why what I think of the movie as a whole. Rossellini was set as the founder of Neo Realism, but was mostly underrated and never given much credit to his ability. The movie was a well-made film, with the many stories in it let you see how other people's lives are going on instead of focusing on just one person and his story. How many times have you watched a movie and wondered what happens to another character other than the main character, this movie gives you five different stories that all occurred at the same time and place. There is a story of a drunken black man who ends up spending time with some kids at the black market and he finds out how hard their life is, and has a different outcomes. Another was when a Italian hooker tries to get with a GI who was drunk, but he starts telling her of the girl he once met that was so pure and innocent, and the hooker who just happens to be that same girl and she leaves and gives him a note to go to an address the next morning. Next morning comes and she waits for him, but he never shows up because he thought the note was phony. This movie just has a lot of unfortunate endings occur to show that not everyone gets a happy ending in this life, and those who do are the ones who worked hard for it.

Elizabeth Stone Paisa is an important and well-known postwar Italian neorealist film. Is made up of six vignettes that are about the Allied invasion from July 1943 until the winter of 1944. They focus on the relationships between the freed Italian people and the Americans as their liberators. They begin in Sicily and end in Venice. A group of soldiers need an escort through the minefield terrain because they are not familiar. A woman offers to lead them, but ends up dying trying to protect one of the soldiers, but the Yanks think that she killed him. Then, a orphan boy steals the shoes from a soldier. The soldier becomes angry and follows the boy back to his town. In another story, a soldier meets a lady during the time where Rome was being liberated. She ends up being a prostitute. The United States nurse decides to chase her lover during the middle of the war, and there is much miscommunication between the characters. In the next one, there is a long and rather humorous discussion between a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and a group of monks. The film ends with a lengthy and violent battle in the Po Valley with the OSS and a band of Germans who will not surrender. Each story in this film supports a different theme, tone, and set of characters. While regular movies are constricted to one or two themes, Paisa is not limited to this because of the fact that there are six stories. This allows for much more creative license to display different positive and negative aspects of this war. There are some historical facts within this film which allows it to not only be considered a creative masterpiece, but be applauded for its historical document.