The Machine That Kill Bad People (1952)

 Roberto Rossellini's "The Machine That Kills Bad People"

While watching Roberto Rossellini's 1952 film "The Machine That Kills Bad People," I thought to myself, "We al know where this is going." In fact, I believe Rossellini knew the audience suspected exactly the point Rossellini was driving at long before the film's conclusion. The film, which seemed to veer in a different direction that Rossellini's standard adherence to neo-realism, goes into territories of fantasy and surrealism (although not fully). 

The film centers on Celestino, who is visited by a homeless man one night claiming to be Saint Andrew. This Saint Andrew fellow gifts him a special camera that, if you take a picture of someone in a picture, they die. Celestino decides that he must take divine justice into his own hands and rid the world of its evil and vile. What he doesn't realize is just how many people that would constitute. 

In 1952, the devastations of the war were still fresh in Italy, especially the fascist domination over the country. What "The Machine That Kills Bad People" illustrates best is how the paranoia and concern over ensuring that never happens again could lead to hypocritical ways of thinking. In the film, it is discussed how 'good' people need to stop 'evil' people and killing them is the only way to nip the problem in the bud. However, when Celestino takes it upon himself to decide who is good and who is evil, he realizes just how corrupt and evil the souls of every human is. In dictating who should live and who should die, he becomes the very fascist he attempts to distinguish. 

What I love about the film is its overwhelming and chaotic tone. Rossellini creates a world of desperate people exasperatingly determined to take whatever 'piece of the pie' they can for themselves. It almost seems like a completely bleak outlook of the world, as every character is revealed to be selfish and deliberately takes from others. To heighten this, Rossellini manages to create such chaotic tones in which watching the film almost feels like you're in a crowded street corner unable to leave. It almost feel suffocating, like there is no hope of escape from a landscape of people tearing the very clothes off of your back. 

Although I was fully on board with the film and felt that Rossellini understood our expectations for how our protagonist would discover his own hypocrisy, the ending of the film felt way too silly to me. For the rest of the film, the small amounts of fantasy/surrealism were toned down enough to allow some sort of philosophical elevation. However, the ending's complete explosion of realism in favor of fantasy with the reveal that Saint Andrew is actually the devil renders the overall experience of the film very flat. It seemed too silly and playful for something that could have been more poignant and nihilistic. 

Overall, I enjoyed the film despite my dissatisfaction with the ending. There are still concepts about it that I really love and Rossellini continues to make great works.