Germany, Year Zero (Italian: Germania anno zero) is a 1948 film directed by Roberto Rossellini, and is the final film in Rossellini's unofficial war film trilogy, following Rome, Open City and Paisà. Germany Year Zero takes place in post-war Germany, unlike the others, which take place in German-occupied Rome and during the Allied invasion of Italy, respectively.
As in many neorealist films, Rossellini used mainly local, non-professional actors. He filmed on locations in Berlin and intended to convey the reality in Germany the year after its near total destruction in World War II. It contains dramatic images of bombed out Berlin and of the human struggle for survival following the destruction of the Third Reich. When explaining his ideas about realism in an interview, he said, "realism is nothing other than the artistic form of truth."
Thirteen-year-old Edmund Kohler lives in devastated, post-World War II Berlin with his ailing, bedridden father and his adult siblings, Eva and Karl-Heinz. Eva manages to obtain cigarettes by going out with soldiers of the Allied forces, but she resists her friends' advice to prostitute herself. Karl-Heinz is the older son who fought in the war and is a burden to the struggling family, refusing to register with the police and get a ration card because he is afraid of what would happen if they found out he fought to the bitter end. The Kohlers and others have been assigned to the apartment home of the Rademachers by the housing authority, much to Mr. Rademacher's irritation.
life is a road life is a plan
life is a role life is more than it seems
enlightened delighted
confused or clear today is your day
there's world in a world outside
they're all the same when you stay inside
getting the news from here and there
blocking thoughts before they turn into lies
switching on switching off
when you're on your own you belong to yourself
and the night is alright
and your days get better and better in every way
just slip down your sleep to enlighten tomorrow
'till you go flashing up the sky
there's world in a outside
they're all the same when you stay inside
life is a road life is a plan
life is a role life is more than it seems
enlightened delighted
confused or clear today is your day
run around get over
and the night is alright
and your days get better and better in every way
just slip down your sleep to enlighten tomorrow