Word: vomero
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...above him bellowed in delirium. The war was over for Sicily, si. But for Naples it was far from over. On Sept. 12, the Panzers rumbled into town as the Italian garrison stumbled off in all directions. Then flying squads of German soldiers burst into the Vomero, the city's principal slum, and gun-butted the male population into labor battalions. In a fury the Neapolitan canaglia, known for a thousand years as the scum of the earth, rose in heroic rebellion against allies they had always loathed. Out of manholes, cellars, caves and sewers crammed with smuggled guns...
...work: the lazy lazzaroni rise to defend their ancient tradition of indolence. On Sept. 27, grim little groups break out their hidden weapons and converge on German units. A substantial enemy force is besieged in a soccer stadium. German columns rush to its relief. But the vermin of the Vomero pile barricades in their wretched alleys, volley grenades from the rooftops, take potshots from parked cars. Even the snotty-nosed scugnizzi manage to get guns and march against the Germans in infantine battalions...
...attention, set out to record a mass movement, and he has done so with stunning force and skill. Few professional actors appear in the film, and those few (among them Jean Sorel and Lea Massari) are not credited; most of the performers were found in the mazes of the Vomero, and many took an active part in the events the film describes. They really are what the picture says they are, and they mightily enforce the illusion that the picture really is what it says it is, that the rebellion really is happening before one's eyes...
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