Germany Year Zero

Germany Year Zero was filmed in 1948 as the final chapter to director Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy.  According to the criterion collection, Rossellini was one of the most influential film makers of all time and his works came to define the neorealist movement.  The review suggest that by being“shot in battle-ravaged Italy and Germany, these three films are some of our most lasting, humane documents of devastated postwar Europe, containing universal images of both tragedy and hope.”

This film is titled “Year Zero” to correlate with “Anno Zero” which identifies the time when new currency was introduced, and the economy started again from scratch. Each German family was given the same small amount of money to rebuild their lives and their country. Glimpses of the black market, prostitution and the destroyed city are portrayed in scene after scene. The desperation of the people is displayed as the people jokes about jumping in the graves they’re digging and scavenge after the meat of a fallen horse.

Specifically, the film frames the young character Edmund in the disheartening story set in the actual post World War II Berlin. Between the sister who is caring for their ill father and his ex-Nazi brother in hiding, Edmund is forced to be the man of the house in order to help his family survive. He drops out of school in hopes of finding work, only to be denied this desire because of his young age. When this plan falls through, Edmund rummages the city in search of any means of employment or food. 

It is after running into a previous teacher, that Edmund finds himself taking desperate measures in order to support his family. At age twelve, he is too naive to understand the remaining presence of the Nazi regime and the danger of their thinking. With each attempt, he fails and finds himself in a bigger dilemma than before. This is emphasized when he misunderstands his teacher’s Nazi speech about the survival of the stronger and makes the bold decision to poison his father’s food so that he will no longer be a burden to his starving family. When his teacher denies ever giving Edmund the suggestion of murder, he enters a state of overwhelming guilt. As he moves to the top of an abandoned building, he sees no other choice than to end his own life.

One review suggests that Germany Year Zero “hammers the audience with an unpalatable truth: the ones who suffered most as a result of the scourge of Nazism are the German people themselves."This is clearly evident in the lives of the families and the state of desperation that shadows the nation.