La via giusta

Roma, città aperta (Open city)

(1945)

Roberto Rossellini's magnificent portrait of life in the Italian Resistance, cowritten by twenty-five-year-old Federico Fellini and released just months after Mussolini's death. Rossellini has been getting some serious DVD attention lately, but I don't believe this has been remastered, and judging by the edition Nf is sending out, it desperately needs it. Still, even scratchy video and occasional sound dropouts can't ruin this heroic piece. I guess some would complain too about the hit-and-miss subtitles, but I thought it was kinda fun to have to rely on my aspirational italiano for every other line--and it's not as if you'd miss the gist even if you didn't know una parola.