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Fascism Germany Italy Italian Neo-Realism Poverty World War II

Germany Year Zero is an Italian Neo-Realist film shot in Germany immediately after the war. The movie deals with the re-construction and recovery of the country and its people and focuses primarily on a small boy named Edmund Köhler {Edmund Moeschke}. After a short bit of text and a dedication to the director's son, a narrator explains that this was shot in what was left of Berlin in the summer of 1947 and that this is meant to be a true and accurate portrayal of the situation in Germany immediately following the war. The camera continues to show us just what an impossible mess all of the bombs have made of the city while the narrator tells us that three and a half million people are actually trying to live amongst these scarred stones and broken buildings.

The camera comes to rest in a relatively rubble free clearing and introduces us to a fairly large group of old women and small children who are digging graves while an administrator wanders through the crowd giving instructions. The administrator accuses Edmund of being too young to work here. Edmund claims that he's sixteen but one of the women tells everyone that he's only twelve. Edmund's forgotten his work papers at home so the old women call him a thief and a liar and send him on his way. Cut to Edmund as he runs through the streets. He comes upon a group of people fighting over the carcass of a cow that's lying in the middle of the street and stops to take a look. The police shoo him away from here as well. When he stops to pick up a piece of coal from the sidewalk the cops chase him away once more.

When he finally reaches the pile of stone that serves him for a home, Edmund finds a government meter reader there. The five families living here have consumed far more than their fair share of gas recently and they're to be fined. Once the meter man has gone, everyone takes turns arguing and making accusations of each other as to who uses the most power. Edmund claims to use only cold water. Back in their room, Papa, who's sick and can't work, tells Edmund that he's happy that he'll no longer be digging graves and accuses his older son Karl-Heinz {Ernst Pittschau} of being a slacker. Karl-Heinz hasn't even registered for a food card yet so the family's trying to feed four people with three cards. Karl-Heinz was a soldier and is afraid he'll get sent to a concentration camp if he registers.

After Edmund leaves, Eva {Ingetraud Hinze} draws Karl-Heinz aside and the two argue for some time. The camera moves from room to room and we find that nearly everyone here has similar problems. The Rademakers, the original occupants of the apartment, don't seem to like or trust anyone and would really just rather that everyone leave. They're afraid that Eva is a bad influence on their daughter. Eva goes out every night. Edmund doesn't like it that his sister goes out every night either but Edmund's just a little boy. He can't do anything about it.

Dissolve to a nightclub where men buy the girls drinks. Everyone seems to think she should be looking for a husband but Eva's not ready to get married just yet. Eva waits in line for food the next day and tells Miss Koeler {Ingetraud Hinze} that she doesn't sell herself because she's waiting for Wolf to come home from the war. An old man takes the scale that the Rademakers have given Edmund to sell for them and "short changes" him leaving him with only two tins of meat. In the square by the fountain, Edmund runs into his old teacher, Mister Enning {Erich Gühne}. Enning is still working with some of the remaining Nazis and seems to be slightly enamored of young boys. Edmund tags along, with his teacher, back to the man's apartment where Ennings gives him a recording of one of the Fuhrer's speeches to sell down at the train station. He also introduces him to a few slightly older and slightly wiser kids. It's not long before Edmund is running with a pretty fast crowd.

This is pretty rough as far as film quality goes. It's also suffered considerably due to time; there's no shortage of noise and glitches. Despite that, the performances are excellent and the filmmaking is pretty great even if the footage is closer to documentary quality than it is to Hollywood's. Everyone involved in this puts in an excellent and completely appropriate performance. Meschke does a nice job as a twelve year old boy raised in impossible circumstances, Hinze and Krüger do a great job as his intense siblings living in horribly stressful conditions and Gühne plays an appropriate scumbag.

It's actually pretty frightening if you really take the time to consider everything this presents to you; the horrible destruction of the city, the poverty, the human suffering this all brings about... This is definitely realist, it's dark and straightforward and doesn't mess around with making things easy or pretty but, it's still pretty beautiful in its own way. The story is bleak and depressing and has a few really strange twists to it as well as a couple of pretty intense moments. This won't appeal to everyone but, for those folk with an interest, this makes for a very nice historical document. It is another one of those films with an ending that you just aren't going to enjoy.