Paisa is an important and well-known postwar Italian neorealist film. Is made up of six vignettes that are about the Allied invasion from July 1943 until the winter of 1944. They focus on the relationships between the freed Italian people and the Americans as their liberators. They begin in Sicily and end in Venice. A group of soldiers need an escort through the minefield terrain because they are not familiar. A woman offers to lead them, but ends up dying trying to protect one of the soldiers, but the Yanks think that she killed him. Then, a orphan boy steals the shoes from a soldier. The soldier becomes angry and follows the boy back to his town. In another story, a soldier meets a lady during the time where Rome was being liberated. She ends up being a prostitute. The United States nurse decides to chase her lover during the middle of the war, and there is much miscommunication between the characters. In the next one, there is a long and rather humorous discussion between a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and a group of monks. The film ends with a lengthy and violent battle in the Po Valley with the OSS and a band of Germans who will not surrender. Each story in this film supports a different theme, tone, and set of characters. While regular movies are constricted to one or two themes, Paisa is not limited to this because of the fact that there are six stories. This allows for much more creative license to display different positive and negative aspects of this war. There are some historical facts within this film which allows it to not only be considered a creative masterpiece, but be applauded for its historical document.
Review of Paisan
