Europa '51 (1952)

 Roberto Rossellini's "Europa '51"

When Roberto Rossellini's "Europa '51" was released in 1952, there were many divisive reactions to the film from critics. Many critics felt the film was too 'on the nose' and 'superficial' with its thematic concepts. However, there are some critics, like France's Andre Bazin, who understood the film in a way that it was meant to be understood: through the exacting realm of realism. 

The film stars Ingrid Bergman as the wealthy wife of an industrialist. After the death of her son, she starts dedicating her life to selfless acts of charity. She helps people acquire medicine for their sick child, she helps a woman get a job at a factory, and even goes to work at the factory on her behalf. However, this new devotion to charity is labeled as insanity, to which she is placed in a mental facility to live out the rest of her life.

I think I would agree with the more critical critics if I were to view the film through a lens of melodrama. However, knowing the work of Roberto Rossellini, one should never do this. Rossellini's films should first and foremost be viewed through his typical adherence to stark realism. For me, Rossellini returned to this stark realism after a quick detour towards more heightened realism with his 1950 film "The Flowers of St. Francis" and his 1952 film from the same year "The Machine That Kills Bad People." After this quick detour, he returned once again to the haven of realism that he himself helped establish in the decade prior. If you take the film at face value and view it through as literal of a lens as possible, you can begin to see the film in its upmost purity. 

If you ascribe a sense of reality and literality to the events that occur in the film, the film's true thematic point becomes alarmingly clear. Obviously, those who negatively reviewed the film were right in saying that some of the concepts presented in the film aren't entirely complex, as the idea of a rich woman becoming aware of class consciousness isn't entirely transcendental. However, what becomes interesting is how society reacts to that awakening of class consciousness. She is deemed insane by her family, by doctors, and even by a priest. The moment the priest denounces her devotion to charity as insanity is perhaps the starkest moment of the film for me. In this post-war landscape, in this new age of global industrialization and class division, the very notion of helping the poor is so alien that one would denounce it as insanity rather than selflessness could not be more harrowing. This concept that Rossellini lays before us bleakly illustrates how inescapable class division is becoming in the 20th century. It is becoming so inescapable, that any deterrence or any realization of class struggle is targeted as threatening. What's even more alarming is that none of the characters seem to be intentionally oppressing Bergman's character, they genuinely believe she has lost her mind. The concept of selflessness is so foreign to the new elite of the post-war 20th century.

If you regard the film through this literal lens, you can then apply an abstract concept to the film to really let it breath and expand in your mind. That concept would be that of Joan of Arc. Our Bergman character, named Irene, is Rossellini's Joan. Through her selfless acts, she becomes a saint to the common people. However, this patronage to the poor and powerless becomes a threat to the establishment. Irene is interrogated about the reason why she rejects the current status quoi and donates herself to the common people is interrogated by her husband, by police, by doctors, and by the priest, just like Joan was interrogated. By the end, Irene is fully committed to the mental asylum. As she's staring out the window watching her family leave her, the group of poor people she helped along the way begin shouting, "There's nothing wrong with her, she's a saint!" This to me, really hits the Joan of Arc nail on the head and confirms the abstract parallel between the two. Irene is a 20th century Joan of Arc. Her story is what a contemporary Joan of Arc character would actually do. In the same way, the modern establishment of today's society would treat such a person in the same exact way. Joan was burned at the stake, Irene is committed to a mental facility. Both charitable symbols of the working class are silenced and punished.

It's quite ironic that even the Catholic Church condemned this film, as Rossellini seemed to notion that even the church is a part of the 'establishment' and doesn't practice what it preaches. His story of the modern Joan of Arc completely identifies the pervading troubles of modernity. "Europa '51" should be looked at in this way and not through the lens of some melodrama. It is a condemnation of modern class division, of modern industrialization, and of modern morality and not some preaching commentary on class for the superficial mind.