OPEN CITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 483, 24 September 1948, Page 24

OPEN CITY

(Excelsa-Minerva) LTHOUGH reference has already been made in these columns to Open City (by way of a note from the Auckland correspondent of The Listener) I would be failing in my duty if I did not endorse the praise already given to this fine picture of the Italian Resistance, now that I have seen it myself. Judged simply as a piece of film work, it is in almost every respect firstclass. The actors act splendidly -- who would believe that Aldo Fabrizi before he took the part of the priest Don Pietro was known only as a music-hall comedian? And the non-actors, the crowds of Italian citizens, move and behave with that quality of cohesion which a crowd exhibits when under the influence of a strong group emotion, and not with the drilled disorder of a mob of Hollywood extras. The photography on the whole is good, but unobtrusively so-what the camera is re-

cording is recent history, and it is recorded with documentary fidelity. The shots are generally well-composed, but attention js never distracted from the story by any kind of artfulness. For all these qualities, and for the force and fire of the direction which has once more demonstrated that the worth of a film need not bear any relation to the size of its budget, this is a picture that could be recommended without a moment’s hesitation. But I would like to recommend Open City for another reason. It is a film that every adult should see for the good of his soul. The fact that it has taken some time to reach New Zealand merely enhances its value, for it serves to remind us of days that many of us are too prone to forget, and of events that we have not taken enough trouble to understand. No one who follows Open City with sympathy and intelligence can fail to understand better the emotional, and therefore the political turmoil of presentday Europe. What one sees happening in this picture is what happened in every European country which suffered

the double agony of German protection and German ejection, Every example of fortitude or cowardice, of bravery or treachery, which the film depicts could be documented a thousand times over from the history of the past decade, but there have not been ten occasions in the past ten years when I have felt so vividly the horror -of a ruthless military occupation. Open City is easily the greatest of the Resistance films. I have seen several of these-American films about resistance in France and Norway, British films about resistance in France and Germany, one French film about French resistance. A number of them fell into the error of depicting the Resistance as a fight against evil things-to use Mr. Chamberlain’s phrase. Open City makes no such mistake. Certainly Don Pietro and Manfredi and Francesco typify the free men of the earth, certainly their struggle was against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places-but it was also a struggle against flesh and blood, and the film does not let one forget that. The Gestapo against whom the Resist-

ance fought so bitterly, were men-and as we are to-day discovering anew, the evil that men do lives after them, If we are not reminded of these things from time to time, as Open City reminds us, we may discover once again that the price of liberty has risen and that vigilance alone is not enough lo meet it.