With mainland Europe left in ruins after war, civilians of the devastated countries sought to rebuild their cities, and return everything to normal. This attempt of normalisation is what drives the story lines of both Primo Levi’s ‘The Reawakening’ and Roberto Rossellini’s ‘Germany Year Zero,’ as the characters in both seek to make things as they were before the war. What differs between the two stories is how the characters went about the process of normalisation, and how each story arc concludes, with Rossellini suggesting Germany can never return to normal, and Levi showing how it could be done.
World War ii destroyed massive swaths of mainland Europe, and even cities with no military or political consequence to the war were targeted as …show more content…
Berlin is now separated into four parts, each occupied by one of the four primary allied powers, with the film set in the American occupied quarter. The story follows a young boy, Edmund Kohler, as he and his family attempt to survive in their ruined city. The opening act immediately shows the rapid changes that have occurred to the city; the great buildings in the opening credits are ruins, the first scene shows Edmund being unable to hold a job digging graves, as he lacks a work permit. He runs away, only to see desperate civilians eyeing a dead horse, when suddenly a man runs at the corpse with a knife, and attempts to carve off a piece. Edmund asks one of the American soldiers watching the spectacle if he could have a piece of the horse, but is told to scram. A tractor carrying coal into the city, likely for fuel rations or industry, spills some onto the street, and Edmund rushes to fill his bag with whatever fuel he can grab, before being cast aside by another American officer. The movie cuts to Edmund as he walks down the street, the music swells, and then the true scope of the destruction is revealed to the viewer. This is not normal life in Berlin, but this is the life that Edmund, his family, and the millions of other displaced people, in cities across the wartorn European mainland
World War ii destroyed massive swaths of mainland Europe, and even cities with no military or political consequence to the war were targeted as …show more content…
Berlin is now separated into four parts, each occupied by one of the four primary allied powers, with the film set in the American occupied quarter. The story follows a young boy, Edmund Kohler, as he and his family attempt to survive in their ruined city. The opening act immediately shows the rapid changes that have occurred to the city; the great buildings in the opening credits are ruins, the first scene shows Edmund being unable to hold a job digging graves, as he lacks a work permit. He runs away, only to see desperate civilians eyeing a dead horse, when suddenly a man runs at the corpse with a knife, and attempts to carve off a piece. Edmund asks one of the American soldiers watching the spectacle if he could have a piece of the horse, but is told to scram. A tractor carrying coal into the city, likely for fuel rations or industry, spills some onto the street, and Edmund rushes to fill his bag with whatever fuel he can grab, before being cast aside by another American officer. The movie cuts to Edmund as he walks down the street, the music swells, and then the true scope of the destruction is revealed to the viewer. This is not normal life in Berlin, but this is the life that Edmund, his family, and the millions of other displaced people, in cities across the wartorn European mainland