MIRACLE IN MILAN has a straightforward plot: young Toto (Francesco Golisano) is discovered in a cabbage patch by an old woman (Emma Gramatica) who brings him up as her son. She passes away, and the boy is sent to an orphanage. Released from the institution as an adolescent, Toto embraces a positive view of life; and becomes involved in a large-scale project to set up a shanty-town on the outskirts of Milan. They fall foul of the landowner Mobbi (Guglielmo Barnabò) who tries every possible means to evict them using the police force, water-cannon, bullets and the like. Toto and his friends resist them with the help of the miracle suggested by the title and end up going to a possibly happier world.
Director Vittorio de Sica and his cinematographer G.R. Aldo capture the atmosphere of postwar Milan with its deserted streets, ruined buildings and outwardly cold population in the depths of winter. Horses and carts still run up and down the streets; cars are a rarity except among the filthy rich. Poverty is rife: many homeless people wander up and down ransacking the rubbish-heaps and making do with very little, even half-empty bottles of alcohol thrown to them from passing cars.
The distinction between rich and poor is highly pronounced, as one might expect from Cesare Zavattini, who rote the novel on which the film is based, as well as collaborating with de Sica. Yet MIRACLE IN MILAN differs from other de Sica movies in its use of quasi- Brechtian devices - for example, street signs changed into multiplication sums for the benefit of the street children, or obvious signs denoting the symbolic meaning of the shanty-town. The musical numbers (by Alessandro Cicognini) attest to a bright future for the poor; not that they need much. They would be happy with just a crust of bread and a roof over their heads.
Stylistically speaking the film has several antecedents, as well as the Italian neo-realist tradition. The sight of the shanty-town residents marching triumphantly down their streets singing about their dreams recalls British musicals such as SING AS WE GO (1934), as well as the better-known Depression-era Hollywood musicals like 42nd STREET (1933). The group ethic that binds Toto and his friends together has further British antecedents in PASSPORT TO PIMLICO (1949), another comedy set in the bomb-damaged wastes of a big city.
MIRACLE IN MILAN is a highly entertaining piece with an upbeat ending, drawing our attention to community values as well as placing our trust in our families. There are some good jokes at the expense of the bourgeois Mobbi, including one where he and his co- conspirator are reduced to barking at one another like a pair of unruly dogs. De Sica's social criticisms are as applicable today as they were sixty-plus years ago; one can only hope that people experiencing similar privations will be as optimistic about their future as Toto.
Director Vittorio de Sica and his cinematographer G.R. Aldo capture the atmosphere of postwar Milan with its deserted streets, ruined buildings and outwardly cold population in the depths of winter. Horses and carts still run up and down the streets; cars are a rarity except among the filthy rich. Poverty is rife: many homeless people wander up and down ransacking the rubbish-heaps and making do with very little, even half-empty bottles of alcohol thrown to them from passing cars.
The distinction between rich and poor is highly pronounced, as one might expect from Cesare Zavattini, who rote the novel on which the film is based, as well as collaborating with de Sica. Yet MIRACLE IN MILAN differs from other de Sica movies in its use of quasi- Brechtian devices - for example, street signs changed into multiplication sums for the benefit of the street children, or obvious signs denoting the symbolic meaning of the shanty-town. The musical numbers (by Alessandro Cicognini) attest to a bright future for the poor; not that they need much. They would be happy with just a crust of bread and a roof over their heads.
Stylistically speaking the film has several antecedents, as well as the Italian neo-realist tradition. The sight of the shanty-town residents marching triumphantly down their streets singing about their dreams recalls British musicals such as SING AS WE GO (1934), as well as the better-known Depression-era Hollywood musicals like 42nd STREET (1933). The group ethic that binds Toto and his friends together has further British antecedents in PASSPORT TO PIMLICO (1949), another comedy set in the bomb-damaged wastes of a big city.
MIRACLE IN MILAN is a highly entertaining piece with an upbeat ending, drawing our attention to community values as well as placing our trust in our families. There are some good jokes at the expense of the bourgeois Mobbi, including one where he and his co- conspirator are reduced to barking at one another like a pair of unruly dogs. De Sica's social criticisms are as applicable today as they were sixty-plus years ago; one can only hope that people experiencing similar privations will be as optimistic about their future as Toto.