Paisan was obviously a very emotional look at the postwar period and the events that affected the Italian people towards the end of the war. The movie really expresses the way Roselini feels about his home country. Especially in the sixth episode, I feel like the psychological effects of the war are really clear. Like when the soldiers stayed behind to help the partisans and defeat the Germans, all it did was cause more of them dead and more partisans left to suffer. The scene when the child is crying over the dead bodies was so sad to watch but it really showed the impacts the war had on Italy and its citizens and how it left so many children as orphans. Although the movie had a lot of really sad scenes, I feel like they were necessary to really capture the effects the war had on their society. . I think Rossellini captured the ruins of Italy really well to show the audience the mass destruction from the war and the lasting effects it had.
The language barrier issue is very prominent throughout the whole movie. Each episode highlights the mistaken miscommunication between the Allies, the Italians, and the Nazis. I felt like we were first introduced to the issue of the language barrier in the first scene between Carmela and Joe as they try to make a connection. I liked how Rossellini staged the scene in like one long take of both of them sitting next to one another by a window, talking, while struggling to understand what they were saying but still smiling and sharing stories. And then we see like the language barrier issue again when the Americans return and think that Carmela was the one who killed Joe.
I also think Rosselinni took a very natural approach to the move, through actuality photography, with actors that were just picked up which included many Americans.
