Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Kirpianuscus it is the right choice to admire it from the artistic perspective. but this represents one of many options. and, maybe, the useful way to discover this special film is the reflection of near reality. not only in the context of the WW II. because the message remains painful because it is a slice of contemporary reality. because the purposes - survive and need to impose the rules against society rules is the same. nothing different. nothing out of well known forms. and this does a gem of neo-realism more than a good example of cinema. but support for see , in profound manner, the near every day reality. to understand. the war, the survive, the situation of a boy among the shadows of war, the meanings of year zero for the conflict zones, the hope as more than noble emotion.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Italian director Reborto Rossellini's film depicting post WWII Germany that was a living hell for the German people who survived the war. It's been estimated that as much as 10 million Germans died,mostly from starvation and disease, during the five years after the German surrender in May 1945. A shocking number which was almost if not more then those who died during the entire length,some six years, of WWII. It's Berlin Germany in the Summer of 1947 and life is hell for the German people who live there. Bearly surviving and with death and starvation staring them in the face many Berliners have to steal get involved in the black market as well as prostitute themselves in order to get food and medicine to survive. The Kohel family is one of many whom the movie "Germany Year Zero" focuses on.With the head of the family Mr. Kohler,Ernst Pittschau, practically on his death bed it's up to his two sons 13 year old Edmund, Edmund Meschke, and 25 year old former Afrika Corps infantryman Karl-Heinz, Franz-Otto Krugr, to bring home the bacon. There's also Eva Kohler, Ingetraud Hinez, who hangs out at the city's bars and nightclubs frequented by US and UK servicemen in order for them to buy her not only a drink but a square meal that she can take home and share with her on the verge of starving to death family.With Karl-Heinz afraid to get a ration card and work permit in fear that his past as a German soldier who didn't surrender at the end of the war, that ended two years earlier, would be reviled and have him sent to a POW camp it's up to Edmund to go out and find work to support his family. It's Edmund's former teacher Herr Henning,Erich Guhne, who gets Edmund involved in the black market as well as puts Nazi or Darwinian like ideas, the survival of the fittest, into the young and impressionable German youths head that in the end turn out to be fatal for both him and his sickly dad Mr. Kolher. It's only later that Herr Henning realized what he did and tried to put the entire blame on Edmund who was just, like the Nazi leadership at the Nuremburg Trial claimed, following orders!***SPOILERS*** It was Edmund who thought that he was doing his near dead father a favor by slipping poison in his tea and putting him out of his misery as well as life who ended up paying the ultimate price for his action. By him jumping off a bombed out Berlin building to his death at the conclusion of the movie thus leaving the cruel world that he finds himself in as well as his remaining family members behind.P.S It was German first time actor Edmund Meschke's striking resemblance to the movie director Roberto Rossellni's recently deceased son Romano, who died in 1946 of appendicitis, that got him the leading part in the movie. In fact the film was dedicated to Rossellini's son in its ending credits.

Robert J. Maxwell Berlin the immediate aftermath of World War II. (Kids, that would be about 1947.) The city is a wreck, with only the essentials of life available. Food is difficult to come by. Bits of clothing are valuable. Rosselini follows the fortunes of one family living in an apartment that makes even mine look good.Papa is sick in bed, suffering from malnutrition and devitaminosis. He's not filled with despair exactly but there are times when he wishes himself to be out of the way. It's a family of four but they are trying to survive on only three ration cards because his older son, who fought the war to its bitter end, is afraid to turn himself in, despite reassurances from others that he won't be punished by the Allied occupation authorities. He's in his 20s and he's bitter as hell about it all. There is a blond daughter too, and she takes care of Papa when she's not out banging soldiers for a few cigarettes.But the story centers about Edmund, the younger son, who is about twelve years old. He's just at that age at which people begin to form a more enduring pictures of themselves but his particular self image has a multitude of lacunae. He absorbs what values and ideas he can from his family but they're all screwed up by poverty.Then, among his Dickensian adventures, Edmund runs into his former teacher, who does him little favors and caresses his cheek lasciviously. Herr Professor seems to have a thing going with a stern, authoritarian figure who apparently has a thing going with several young boys.The teacher is not merely a pimp but a philosopher and as he guides Edmund around through the streets that have only recently been cleared of broken granite, he begins to spout a kind of Social Darwinism, as much to himself as to Edmund, and without passion or even much conviction. You know, the weak must die and get out of the way for the strong; the survival of the fittest; dog eat dog; it's a zero sum game.Edmund, though, is a kid and he takes this bushwa seriously because he doesn't know the difference between philosophy and everyday life. Shakespeare, for what it's worth, new the difference. In "The Merry Wives of Windsor," he has Falstaff remark sarcastically, "There never was philosopher could bear the toothache patiently." But Edmund is too young to know. So he goes home, poisons Papa, and the old man dies. No one knows what Edmund did, so he's taken aback by all the grief shown by the family and the neighbors. Not that the sadness of Papa's passing prevents the neighbors from speculating about what will be done with Papa's shoes.There is also the problem of the body. What do you do with a corpse when you don't have money for a casket, let alone a funeral? You can't just let it lie there. (For me, the most horrifying episode on "Crime and Punishment" was when a man dies in Raskolnikov's apartment house and, the family having no money, the body deteriorates and causes a smell.) The neighbors haul the body out onto the balcony and leave the family to deal with it.I wonder if, in a way, the story of Edmund's development is not meant as a summary of the evolution of Germany before, during, and after the war. He begins as a naif. Then, under the tutelage of a reckless and unthinking lunatic, he embraces a dangerous philosophy. And then he suffers the same fate as his nation.

Apocalypse_Salem Young Edmund and his family live in the bombed out ruins of post-war Germany. Cramped into one house with four other families, without electricity or food they struggle to survive. His mother did not survive the war, his father is slowly dying, and his brother is in hiding to escape the Russian camps. Since Edmund is too young to legally work, they all depend on his older sister to survive. Edmund is troubled by the burden he puts on his sister, trying to be the man his brother does not have the guts to be and thus he is out looking for ways to make money. A former teacher (and possible paedophile) helps him make some quick cash by selling Nazi memorabilia to American soldiers. The money is not enough and Edmund's father is getting worse. Following a conversation with his former teacher, Edmund tries to do the right thing and out of love, poisons his father to set him free. The images of the real life landscapes are extremely powerful, and young Edmund Moeschke gives one of the best performances I have seen from a child actor, the rest of the cast and dialogues are a bit stiff at parts. An honest and shocking portrayal of the best and worst of humanity. (10/10)