The film by Roberto Rossellini, Deutschland im Jahre Null, was part of a trilogy.
It takes place in 1947, real time, in the ruins of Berlin.
Germans are surviving by trading their bodies or meager belongings for food and necessities.
Andy couldn’t concern himself about depravities, being without purpose or direction, or starvation. He’ll always have his Greenies.
…Andy has his own concerns to work out.
Andy has another priority.
Greenies eaten, Andy needs take to the recliner.
Edmond asked his sister and brother if his father’s free now that he is dead. They reassured him.
Edmond tells his former teacher about giving the medicine to his father to help him die. The teacher told him earlier something that Edmond took to mean he should help his father die because there was no future. Learning this, the teacher became agitated, fearing the authorities would now search for him, a Nazi in hiding.
Edmond now understands he did something very wrong. He wanders off through the rubble of Berlin. He briefly tries to play football/ soccer with children who send him away. It was his brief effort to return to childhood.
He climbs into a ruin,where he sees his family sending his father’s body off for burial. His sister calls for him, but he ignores her and jumps out of the ruins to his death.
Andy’s quite content with his life.
=(^+^)=
This was an anti-war film that had no soldiers or weapons of war. The impact of misdirected politics on a vibrant, highly civilized people tells the tale: a nation reduced to ruin. When I had military work in West Berlin in the early 1970s as a US Army motion picture photographer, the city was once again rebuilt, vibrant and full of restaurants, bars, theaters, parks, recreational lakes, and just a few signs of the impact of a lost war…the Berlin Wall, for example.
Paisan; Rome, Open City; and Germany Year Zero are the three films. I see they are available in a $50 set through Amazon, and, no doubt, other vendors. Maybe they can be streamed, too. I probably will watch them eventually, but this on on Germany was enough sadness for one shot.
You said that was part 3 you watched? What’s the name of the Trilogy?
I don’t know. I think the first two are similar variations on the Italian experience of war. I was unaware it was a trilogy until it showed up in another comment.
A very grim story, but those times should be remembered.
It is a haunting one.
So very sad, Doug. Hitler was the devil. Trading their bodies?
Hard not to wonder, eh?
A sad film, Doug. “The impact of misdirected politics on a vibrant, highly civilized people tells the tale: a nation reduced to ruin” sums it up.
Yes! I was there during the 200th birthday year (1970) of Beethoven, another aspect of that culture that made the 12 years of the Third Reich all the more beyond belief.
The history of Nazi Germany is very disturbing. When I was stationed there, I found the Germans to be mostly very nice and polite.
That was my experience with Germans, too. I really enjoyed the country. It was strange to realize that older Germans I met or knew probably had some history behind them that would make me very uncomfortable.
it was a very sad oeuvre by rosselini… and we always hoped there is a way for this boy while watching, but …..
Indeed. “The Search”, about a little Czech boy who is trying to locate his mother after becoming separated from her after the war is a happier film and takes place in the same ruins of Berlin.The end of this film was a shocker.
By coincidence I am currently reading The Berlin Diaries of Marie Vassilitchikov, a White Russian stuck in Berlin 1940 – ’45
I’ll have to look that ine up. It’s always interesting to me to read that sort of eye witness account of historically “hot” times. Cees Nooteboom’s book on Berlin during three periods – under Soviet control; end of the wall; post unification – was a good read, and this one you are reading would, I think, plug in nicely! “The Search” about a little Czech boy trying to find his mother after becoming a displaced person at the end of the war was a happier ending than this one and is one of my favorites to watch any time it is broadcast.
One left in stock! I ordered her book!