Roma Citta Libera: Little-seen Italian Film

Marcello Pagliero's little-seen Roma Citta Libera is a film that is rather difficult to classify. Made in an era of Italian cinema characterized by neorealism, Pagliero's film has elements which are recognizably Italian neorealist (desperate, impoverished working class characters, a story dealing with the hardships of life in postwar Italy, an overriding sense of hopelessness) and yet, the film does not fit snuggly into this categorization. Instead, Roma Citta Libera integrates these neorealist details into a story that has more in common with Rene Clair's Le Million than with Roberto Rosselini's Rome, Open City.

The harsh realities of life in Italy following the war are integral to Roma Citta Libera, both visually and narratively. However, throughout the film what begins as pessimism fed by day to day hardships, is eventually tempered by a prevailing sense of hope which often arrives by mere chance or folly. For example a man, who is both broke and brokenhearted, decides to commit suicide, but is saved at the last moment by a petty thief who happens to be in the wrong place at the right time.

The element of chance also ties the various characters and storylines together by way of a valuable pearl necklace that repeatedly changes hands - eluding the criminals and policemen who realize the necklace's true value, but falling into the hands of penniless characters who believe the pearls are fake and the necklace of little worth.

The film's story is fueled with these little ironies. In fact the trajectory of the two main characters is very much in keeping with this central concept of chance happenings and ironic, hopeful, and somewhat playful conclusions. In the beginning the film's main characters are both neighbors who have never met; however, while separately searching for the same thing, money, they find each other, and in the process, something much more rare and valuable.