Customer Reviews

Miracle in Milan ( Miracolo a Milano ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of those films that really make you feel good.

It's the story of a young orphan who is forced to move to a shanty town in bomb-wrecked, post-WWII Milan.

The people who now live in those precarious tar-paper shacks are depicted as everyday people who have lost the lives they had made for themselves. Being an honest, good-natured kind of guy, the orphan soon finds himself surrounded by friends. The film is very clear on the point that the vast majority of conflicts can be settled with some commonsense and a bit of goodwill on both sides.

But there is a down side to this and the film is worldly-wise enough to point it out: the squatters represent a cross-section of society and class prejudice, selfishness and naked ambition are just as present as anywhere else. When an important oil company decides to purchase the ground beneath the shanty-town, there are those that try to get in good with the company and there are those that decide to stick together and hold out.

There are some funny, whimsical bits where magic is used against the company men and policemen who have come to evict the remaining squatters and finally, the poor fly off to a land which the film describes as a place where "Good Morning" really DOES mean "Good Morning". In other words, to a place where people are friendly and above all, sincere.

The film has a nice "Christmasey" feel and in fact, it's fairly standard Italian Christmas TV fare in much the same way as "It's A Wonderful Life" in the USA. It'd be OK to watch with kids and the grown-ups would get to watch something a little bit more interesting than the usual kiddie film.

"Miracle In Milan" demonstrates a firm belief in honest worth no matter what its external appearance may be and an unshakeable conviction in an ultimate reward for goodness, sentiments which it's hard to disagree with.

If any film can top The Bicycle Theif and Umberto D, it's Miracle in Milan. Di Seca flexes his fantasy muscles in this visual tour de force. The story surrounds a boy who's found in a cabbage patch by an old woman. Later, the old woman dies and the boy is forced to live in a sort of "homeless habitat" whose members he teaches to read and write and rise up against an evil tycoon set to destroy their homes. Through its own unique absurdity and humor, the film is absolutely magical. A must-see for fans of Roberto Benini.

If your soul needs nourishment--this film will help. If you've lost your soul, this film might give you a clue to where to find it. If you have no soul, you probably will be bored: go elsewhere.

The plot is fragile beyond description and all but falls apart in the last third or so, but it works anyway--my gosh, how it works. Miracle is genuinely charming: what all fantasies and fairy tales aspire to but so rarely reach. The cast is perfect and the main song addictive. Now if only I could get all the words to it! I know there's something in there about wanting a pair of shoes, but the rest is just a jumble. Consequently, I have to make up my own lyrics and so wander through the house singing improvised verses about my cats.

Old Lolotta (Emma Gramatica) discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She raises the child, but when she dies Good Toto (Francesco Golisano) has to enter an orphanage. One day he leaves the orphanage as a happy young man and goes to work in Milan. However, this is after the war and he ends up with the homeless and destitute, helping them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. When the squatters discover oil in the land, Toto has a vision of Old Lolotta, who gives him a magic dove that will grant his wishes. This is a good thing, because Mobbi, the Rich Man (Guglielmo Barnabo) wants to get at that oil.

With "Miracle in Milan" Vittorio De Sica has created one of the purest allegories since "The Wizard of Oz." You can certainly take this film at face value, as a charming little fantasy where the characters are reduced to labels as well as names (e.g., Bad Rappi and Little Edvige) and in the end good triumphs over evil. But you can also remember that this film was made in 1951, and that the post-war recovery was not entirely successful. Whether De Sica is condemning all European governments or just Italy's is debatable, but there is a none too subtle serious message to this film as well. You can watch it with your children, or grandchildren, and get entirely different readings of this film. Either way, this film is well worth viewing.

Miracle in Milan is initially about almost everything you don't want a film to dwell on. A fog-bound, dreary periphery wasteland of burgeoning, very industrial late 1940s Milan. Power lines and train tracks cross a barren no-mans land. People sidelined in life, "tramps", survive in rough shelter in this desolate, sunless landscape -- creating their own mimicry of normal society. But then along comes the young uncynical man, earlier the boy literally found under a cabbage leaf by a wonderful old woman who is charm itself.

De Sica may be renowned for a socialist view of the world, but his politics are here surbservient to cinema and character magic. You get dogma in an almost disney-like send-up of the bad guys -- industrialists who arrive on the scene in their top-hats, fur-collared coats and limousines. They're almost like befuddled, misanthropic Mr Magoos. As all hope is about to be lost for our illegal settlers, a magic-laden dove is given to our young hero. The ending sweeps away everything before it.

If you can suspend your disbelief, this film casts a spell of its own peculiar magic. A lonely old lady discovers a baby in a cabbage patch, bringing him into her home and raising him as a kind of enfant sauvage, with her spirit of fun and giving. When she dies, the boy is taken to an orphanage, emerging with his spirit undimmed and winding up in a bidonville community of hobos on the outskirts of Milan. There he immediately comes to occupy the center of the community as a kind of saintly comedic leader, accepting to get water splashed in his face in order to help a servant girl avoid the wrath of her penniless matron. The grace within the hobos comes out.

When real estate interests become interested in the site, serious conflict begins. Apparently naive and simple minded like an anarchist, the boy leads the community of bums in a simulacra of war, which makes fun of the graspingly rapacious capitalism that was emerging then, post-WWII. Then, there is the miracle, which must be seen to be believed (I don't want to spoil it!). It is their salvation, but it is still funny and absurd at the same time.

As a morality tale and yet metaphysical, this is a unique and wonderful viewing experience. It is also the precursor to the blend of absurdly impossible with stark social realism that Fellini later made his trademark, so of great interest to film history. Warmly recommended.

This film is like an allegory of the gospel. It has such direct honesty and innocence you can not possibly believe it was made after the world war when Italy was ravaged and devastated, and was filled with a huge homeless, impoverished population. It is a monument to the best qualities of the human spirit, as well as to the endless creative resources of that land of inspiration.

Toto is a character like Doestoevisky's "Idiot", a modern Christ finding his way in a big city. He is goodness and purity fortified by love, and his acts change the people he encounters, as much as the miracle working dove. The story is told in a natural manner and simple style, yet imbued with a magic that is almost a premonition of Fellini's surrealist fantasies. It is one of the most inspiring, uplifting movies ever made.

If you're getting colder try with this movie to fill yourself with warm hope in hopeless world.

we get this release. Why are so many brilliant Italian movies so slow in being released on dvd ?

This one is a masterpiece. I saw this movie a few years ago at the Italian Cultural Center here in Los Angeles, and it left an indelible image in my mind despite the poor quality of the print that was shown. This reprint is fantastic !

They don't make movies like this anymore. Highly recommended; as others have mentioned, this may be his best movie. Even if it isn't, it's a gem that you will never forget.