Germany Year Zero,

           

Germany, Year Zero is another master piece of the most influential director that practices the Italian neorealism cinematic movements, Roberto Rossellini.

The Germany, Year Zero it’s a war trilogy of Roberto after the World War two. This movie was the last piece from Roberto Rosseline’s war trilogy. The movie title Germany, Year zero or also known as the “Anno Zero” identifies the time when the new currency was announced, and the starting of the economy again from scratch. The movie film was cast by unprofessional actors and actresses, and was shot on location. The Germany, Year Zero portrays the life of the German’s struggle in surviving during the post-war.

        During the post-war, each German family was given the same small amount of money to rebuild their lives and their country. Scenes of destroyed building and black markets were portrayed in the movie. The main cast of the movie is a twelve years old blonde boy, Edmund, who is a school dropout. He has been struggling in taking up the responsibility as the man of the family in the young age. His elder brother, Karl-Heinz, was one of the Nazi regiment and he has not registered to the police as he is afraid that he would be punished.

     Due to Karl-Heinz situation, Edmund has been loitering around to search for jobs and find every ways to bring back food for his ill father. His young age has given him burden in finding for jobs. He lied his age and has worked in the cemetery helping the folks in digging graves. However, the folks found out that he was only thirteen then he was told to leave. Desperation in need of money leads Edmund to be involved in the black market.  

      His former teacher also a Nazi regiment offers him a job in selling the artifacts of the Nazi.Edmund 

then hangs out with the bunch of young thieves that lives under the bridge. The family of four has been living in a bombed building together with few
other families.

Edmund has misinterpreted the Nazi speech by his former teacher, Herr Enning, on the survival of the stronger. He then made up his mind to poison his father thinking that it will help the father feels better. Later when he told his former teacher of his action, his former teacher scolded and shouted at him. The guilt of killing his father strikes the little boy and it leads him to suicide. 

         The struggle that portrayed in the movie shows the difficulties and desperation of the Germans to survival. There were lots of prostitution and black markets activities as it gives good pay. Those were the days that Germans has been facing and living with. The realism of the society was well played by the locals in the movie. The actors and actresses are ordinary people who are the locals of the society.

        

            Due to that, the emotion and expression were being played very well as it is their daily life. Italian neorealism principles are to show the truth and the reality of the nature, ‘real flow of life’. Therefore, there were no studio effect and visual effects used. There were no fancy clothes or make up; the cast were at their natural look and it identifies the common wears of the society.

There were lots of long shots used as there was lots of running involved. Scenes where Edmund ran to the old building where he then suicide, running to his former teacher, and running along with the young thieves at the underground train station after stealing money from a well dressed women. Besides, there were lots of closed up on the cast’s side profile. It can be seen when Edmund was walking on the street, Eva talking to Karl-Heinz and Edmund’s father. Most of the shots were long shots, there were severe cuts.

Based on the neorealism  idea, dialogue that were used were very common and the topic that is discuss are the common topics of the Germans as it was topic that you could picked up along the street. It is as common as ‘play with him make him happy tonight’ by the young thief to the little girl in ordering her to make Edmund happy. There were scenes where Edmund was asked to sell a weighing machine by his tenant with the price of 300marks, but however he was con by the rich buyer. The rich buyer handed him two can of luncheon meat and that portrays how the society over there treated the poor. They dominant them, being so inconsiderate towards the young kids and bullies them.

There were no filters on the scenes and topic even the lighting were not edited. Natural lighting were put in used, no emphasize in the lighting. Therefore the night scenes were dark and dim only based on the light source of the location such as the street light and lights from a bulb unlike other movies extra lighting were used to emphasize on the environment. For example where Edmund went hidden in the old building and he ran up the stairs to the only light bulb over there for the source of light.