The last of Roberto Rossellini's 'War Trilogy' movies and it couldn't have been better. The movie is filmed in the backdrop of an obliterated Berlin where the survivors of the war fight for survival. The center character is that of a boy who makes a futile attempt to get a job and make money and keep his family of 4 meet the bills. They live at the mercy of the Rademakers. The boy, having failed to get a job, meets his former teacher who makes the boy trade his goods to the Americans. The boy befriends a girl, who despite being in her early teens, solicit to make a living(though not explicitly shown). The women in his house, his sister and the daughters of the Rademakers too date the Americans to earn a little money. The gullible boy gets persuaded by his pedophile teacher to end the life of his ailing father, how only the fittest deserve to survive; plants a sapling in the brain of the boy the Nazi principle of eugenics. The boy poisons his father to his death. After having realized what heinous crime he had committed, the boy commits suicide due to guilt.
The movie is well-written and the director's attempt to bring to the silver screen the struggle of those who'd lived through the war only to live in dilapidated buildings, no fixed job, no steady income and stricken by poverty is laudable.
The movie is well-written and the director's attempt to bring to the silver screen the struggle of those who'd lived through the war only to live in dilapidated buildings, no fixed job, no steady income and stricken by poverty is laudable.