A Difficult Life (Una vita difficile)

Partisans!

Take the typewriter!

- My God! > Careful, Silvio! - Who is it?

Do you remember it now, mrs. Pavinato, at the hotel "Leon d'oro"?

- Say the Tisico sent you. - Goodbye and thanks. - Bye, Silvio.

Careful, the Germans are there.

Not there, the hotel is on the other side.

Attention, Germans coming.

- Heil, Hitler. - Heil, Hitler.

Are you the landlady of the hotel?

Mother.

> Mother.

- Mrs. Pavinato? - Yes, what do you want?

The Tisico sent me. You have a flour mill, can you give me the keys?

- Why? - We are five, in need of a secure shelter.

- Who are you? - I am Silvio, the partisan journalist

writing for "La Scintilla". I need your flour mill.

Move on! I don't want anything to do with you.

- You have stolen salami from me. - Be careful what you say.

I am no thief, I am an officer and a university student.

I look like this because I'm hunted for by the Germans.

I don't want to have anything to do with you.

For three nights I've been sleeping in a cemetary, with a terrible toothache.

If it does not give the keys to me, I'll break open the door!

I fight against the Germans and I must be helped!

Is that the German?

Hands up!

What's that? - A typewriter. I'm a writer.

- You're a partisan! - No, I'm a writer. Artist. Novelist.

Madam, you speak German. Help me, this will kill me.

You cannot kill me just like that, you must prosecute me.

You don't deserve a legal process, italian traitor!

- You've been firing at my German comrades. - My God!

Oh.

You killed him with an iron?

Where are you going?

- Murderer, what have you done? - It was her. - Elena?

What's going on?

In my room there is NO hot water.

Quick, hot water for lieutenant Franz.

- Leave now. - Where? - Now!

Come with me. Run!

- Are the Germans there? - Go.

Where are you running? Here.

- What are you doing? - Taking the keys.

- Whose house is it? - My grandfather's flour mill. It's abandoned now.

- The Germans will not find you here. - You're right. - Get inside.

Quick.

- Let's hide the machine gun. - Yes, take it.

We'll put it here.

It's beautiful here, I like it.

- Thanks, you have saved my life. - Eh!

What's up, do I scare you?

Are you a servant? Do you work in that hotel?

What do you mean, servant. I'm the landlady's daughter.

- You, who are you? What you do in life? - I'm a student.

- Southerner? - No, I'm from Rome.

- You're a Roman? - Yes.

- How did you end up here? - I was a second lieutenant in Como.

Then came the 8th of september, my regiment was abandoned…

You're shaking. Are you cold? Afraid?

No, I have a neuralgia swelling in my cheek, closing my eye.

I have many pains because of the humidity. I also have a cough.

- You have bronchitis? - Chronic bronchitis.

Do you have lice?

No, I'm clean, I wash myself nearly every day.

This fabric is itching me, it is mutton wool.

- Let's go. - Eh?

- Let's go. - Where? - Here!

You can rest here, then tonight when it's dark you can move on.

- Whose bed is it? - My grandfather's. - Beautiful!

- I haven't slept in a bed for four months. - Where did you sleep?

Where we printed the newspapers, under bridges, in cemetaries.

Every night we changed places, to avoid being found by the the Germans.

Let me make the bed.

I'm distressed, because for three nights I've been sleeping in a cemetary,

- in a tomb, next to a dead man. - Holy Mother!

- Here, put yourself to bed. - How nice! Tomorrow morning I will move on.

- Where will you go? - I'll catch up with my companions, they need me.

I write the newspaper, they are poor and unfortunate.

They are brave, but illiterate.

Go to sleep now.

Afterwards I'll get you hot milk and an aspirin.

- Also get me a cigarette. - Very well.

- What is your name? - Elena.

- And you? - Silvio.

Thanks, Elena, I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life.

- What are you doing? - I haven't seen a woman in months. Stay with me.

- No, I'm going to the hotel. - Should I come also? - No.

I'll sleep now, and tomorrow at dawn I will move on.

- Good bye. - Close the door.

Radio newscast. From the Don to the deserts of Africa, calmness reigns.

Also in the Three-Power Pact nations, Christmas is celebrated.

The Führer has assured it will be the last Christmas of war.

Victory is sure.

- What a beautiful beard you have! - Do you like it?

My grandparents slept in this bed for 40 years.

- 40 years, always together? - Yes, until they died.

Give me a cigarette.

Your mother, what does she say? She knows we're together?

- No, she believes you are dead. - Dead?

Everyone thinks you're dead, even the Germans.

You've kept me here for three months. My newspaper does not come out anymore.

It would be worse if I were dead.

- Do you hear steps? - Is it your mother? - I don't know, I'll go see.

- Who is it? - Your friends, the partisans.

- Look at that! Pippo, Lepre, the Vampiro. - Which one is the Vampiro?

Look. All of my companions who were with me. I'm going out.

- Where? - I must go.

- You said you would leave tomorrow. - You've held me here for three months.

- I want to call out to them. - Let them go, they haven't seen you.

Pinza, Pedro, Aquila!

- Close it, or you will catch bronchitis. - They have gone.

How cold! They are gone. And I, what do I do?

- You will go to bed. - To bed? - Yes, you're cold.

- I should have gone with them. - Why, don't you like it here with me?

No, I'm fine.

It's a shepherd's house, but it is fine.

How is your house is Rome?

It is big, and has large window facing the Tiber river.

- Shall we go and live there? - Sure, if it hasn't been requisitioned.

- What will you do after the war? - I'll be a journalist.

I will write. I already have a novel in mind.

Did you hear? Shooting.

They are my friends! It's Barbetta! He makes the explosives.

They blew up the central.

And I'm here, in bed with you! What a scoundrel!

- Hey, Vampiro! - Who's there?

- Silvio. - Where have you been?

I've been sick, with bronchitis and other pains,

but an old woman has nursed and rescued me. Now I'm coming with you.

She's been like a mother to me. She has given me ham and salami.

If the old one awakens, she won't let me leave. She's become too attached!

Flour! Let's go.

- How cold! - You can feel the mountains!

- Who has typeset "The Americans out of Rome"? - I have.

- Who gave you the order? - Magnozzi. - Silvio.

- The article was "The Americans in Rome". - It is better like that!

- Let me decide! - You have already twice caused this newspaper to be stopped.

Simonini, don't worry about it, let the director decide.

Yes? Speak, director.

You've read the article?

The title? “The Americans out of Rome”.

No? More moderate? I would kick them out personally.

I hear you director. I do not have a sense of realities?

I must "keep my feet on the ground”?

At times I can't control myself. When… You want Simonini?

Right away. Simonini, the director wants to talk to you.

- Hello? I'm starving already! - That's not true.

No, no. The Dongo gold? They found it in Lake Como?

- Very well. I must leave straight away? - Tell him I'm coming with you.

I'll take Magnozzi with me.

- No? - I know the places, I was a partisan.

- He knows the area, he was a partisan. - Sure!

Very well.

- What did he say? - He said yes.

- When do we leave? - Immediately.

- I said "immediately". - Yes.

“The Americans in Rome”, then. The director is sending me to the Dongo.

7 months after the end of the war,

we are here, where tragedies of war and fascism took place.

The search for the famous treasure of the Dongo has been futile.

and the journalists are returning to their quarters.

Get away! It may blow up!

- Get us water! - Water!

On that mountain there is a flour mill

where I spent a wonderful time with a woman. A beautiful woman.

See that village? She lives there.

The one who killed a German with an iron? - Yes.

Over there is her hotel.

- How do we get there? - With the ferry, takes ten minutes.

- Does she have any sisters? - One, a little one.

Let's go there, we'll eat, sleep for free and pass a beautiful evening.

I cannot go to her.

I promised to marry her, take her to Rome.

Instead one night I ran away while she was sleeping.

I have never sent her a single postcard.

Hello? Hotel Leon d' Oro? Miss Elena?

- You're not her? - You're her mother? - Her sister. - Give it to me.

Hello, Iris? This is Silvio.

Yes, I'm alive.

- Don't get your mother, get Elena. - How many years is she?

- She was 13 years. - So now she's about 15. Let's go there. - No! Shut up!

Hello, Elena? My love! No, I'm not dead.

I'm a few kilometres from you.

What are you doing, love, are you crying?

It's too emotional for her, she cannot speak.

- How I like that! - If her sister is too young, she can bring a friend.

Hello, Elena?

Speak, tell me something!

Two cases of beer? What are you saying?

Her mother is there, she doesn't want her to understand she is talking to me.

- Why I haven't written? Well… - “I will explain it all to you later”.

- I will explain everything. - “We'll be out late". -Leave me alone!

I wasn't talking to you. I'm not alone here. Let me speak!

You have no idea what has happened! I will tell you all about it when we meet.

- “We'll be until late.” - Yes!

I never graduated, I started as a journalist.

I've come from Rome with the purpose of seeing you.

I so much want to see you again, my love.