Paisan (1946)

The second film in Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy (the other two being Rome, Open City and Germany Year Zero), Paisan concerns itself with communication and understanding during wartime. Broken up into six different stories, Rossellini documents the interactions between the native Italians and the American soldiers during WWII. The term "documents" is apt, as each story is preceded by documentary footage from the war. In fact, much of the film feels like a documentary. The movie was filmed on location, in the war-torn cities of Italy, and used amateur actors, some picked right off the streets. This documentary-like visual style would come to define both Rossellini as well as the film movement he helped create, Italian neo-realism. This real-life quality to the film serves to make the stories more raw.