PAIS (DVD)
A film by Roberto Rossellini

Available for the first time on DVD in the UK, Robert Rossellini’s ambitious and enormously moving follow-up to his breakthrough Rome, Open City is presented here in a new restoration.

Made in the aftermath of the Second World War, Pais is constructed as a series of six encounters which take place during the liberation of Italy as Allied troops advance through the country from Sicily to the northern Po Valley, via Rome and Florence.

Shot on location using a non-professional cast alongside actors, the semi-documentary aesthetic and epic sweep of Pais is both charming and devastating in it’s portrayal of the final days of war and the confusion that follows in it’s wake.

Pais forms the second part of Rossellini’s acclaimed War Trilogy and is classic of neo-realist cinema.

Special features

• New remastered presentation
• Into the Future (2009, Tag Gallagher, 30 mins): a visual essay on the War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher
• Illustrated booklet featuring essays and credits

Italy, Estonia | 1946 | black and white | Italian, German and English language, with optional English subtitles | 120 minutes | Original aspect ratio 1.33:1 | DVD9 | PAL | Cert PG | Region 2 DVD

Review

The film’s style is the foundation on which the whole aesthetic of neo-realism was built. –Time Out

This is a film to be seen – and seen again –New York Times