Film and Felt

Clocking in at just 71 minutes, Roberto Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero, set in the ruins of Post-War Germany, contains enough despondency to satisfy the most pessimistic of neo-realists. A ravaged family is slowly being ripped apart by malnutrition and poverty. With his father bed-ridden and his brother Karl-Heinz afraid to show himself (being a former Nazi, he’s subject to imprisonment), 12-year-old Edmund is forced to shoulder the complete weight of supporting his family. He tries to find an honest job but is rebuffed because of his age—from there, he resorts to the black market and thievery. Despite exceptional bravery, Edmund is still a child forced by default into being a man, and his judgement falters many times. His desire to save his family burns so strongly that the viewer takes every misstep personally. Germany Year Zero never ceases striking home viciously.

Unlike the moving neo-realist films of Vittorio De Sica, Germany Year Zero is completely uncompromising. Rossellini’s bravery to shoot in Germany so soon after WWII can’t be taken for granted. Never does hope feel present, as people on the streets rip chunks out of a dead horse to bring home to their starving families and Hitler’s voice resonates from a record player in a destroyed building. By the final ten minutes of the picture, Edmund’s failures leave him feeling completely abandoned and alone. Even the street urchins playing soccer coldly shun him. The image of Edmund wandering the ruins, a beaten child, won’t soon be forgotten by anyone who sees Germany Year Zero. However, the real star of the show is the devastated city itself. Its bleak and shattered state is indicative of Edmund and everyone like him in post-War times. There’s rarely a shot that doesn’t portray the utter hopelesness of Edmund’s situation, and it makes his eventual fate feel almost inevitable, if no less wrenching as a result. With the United States currently at war with Iraq, Germany Year Zero is likely to hit home on a more personal level as well.

© Gabe Leibowitz 2003