The Machine that Kills Bad People

Roberto Rossellini's film about a photographer who is given the power to rid the Earth of 'evil-doers'.

A photographer is given the power to rid the Earth of 'evil-doers' using his camera, but soon becomes addicted to his power and begins to smite down everyone indiscriminately.

Made in the middle of his run of films with Ingrid Bergman, The Machine That Kills Bad People finds Rossellini displaying the more humorous and fantastical possibilities of neo-realist cinema (much like Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan, from the previous year) and offers evidence of his transition to the more poetic style seen in his Bergman collaborations.