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"The Italian" is a touching tale of a six-year-old Russian orphan who goes in search of the mother who gave him to a foundling home when he was just an infant.

Vanya has spent virtually his entire life growing up in a substandard orphanage run by an alcoholic director and a cold-hearted administrator. The children there live in virtual squalor with no effort on the part of the leaders to properly instruct or educate them. The future for most of these youngsters is a bleak one indeed, with a life of petty thievery and/or prostitution the most likely outcome for any of them not fortunate enough to catch the eye of some prospective, loving parent. Yet, as the movie begins, young Vanya's personal nightmare seems to be coming to an end as a kind Italian couple has come to Russia with the intention of adopting Vanya and taking him back to Italy with them. However, before the proper papers can be signed, the boy, sensing he must act quickly before it is too late, sets off on a long, arduous journey to see if he can find the mother who abandoned him as a baby.

"The Italian" is a compelling slice-of-life drama that has a great deal to say not only about the appalling conditions faced by orphans in Russia today, but about the determination of the human spirit and the need for love that exists at the center of every human heart. Director Andrei Kravchuk brings a near-documentary quality to the film, as he focuses his camera on the details of everyday life in the orphanage and the countryside through which Vanya travels. This air of naturalism extends to the actors as well, particularly young Kolya Spiridonov, who, as Vanya, gives a performance that can only be termed extraordinary and heartbreaking. After this film and the brilliant "The Return," I'm convinced that Russia has some of the finest child actors in the business. Indeed, there is nothing less than a superb performance in the entire film.

"The Italian" is a film tuned to the realities of life in a harsh environment, where cruel and violent deeds often share the stage with acts of random kindness. Vanya's epic adventure provides more than ample opportunity for him to experience both, but it is the magnanimity he encounters at the hands of strangers that lingers longest in memory.

It is not likely that I will find Andrei Kravchuk's first film, A Christmas Miracle< in my search for Christmas movies to get me in the spirit; but, his second film, and Russia's entry into the Oscar race is truly heartwarming and an outstanding sophomore venture for the new director.

Six-year-old Vanya (Kolya Spiridonov) is being adopted from a Russian orphanage by an Italian couple. While waiting, he comes across a mother looking for her son, who has long since been adopted. He decides to find his own mother and sets out to make this happen, even though he has already be "sold." Of course, the people who sold him are trying to find him as he journeys to find his mother. Six years old and off on a journey well beyond his years. Like so many children in the world he has to grow up too fast - most because of war or tragedy like Darfur.

You will be torn by what the children at the orphanage do to survive, and you will be heartened by the strangers who help him along the way. Most of all, you will find that there are some great movies out there that do not depend on CGI or excessive violence to entertain. This is certainly one of them.

this was one of the best movies i have seen in a long time. not only was kolya spiridov magnificent, every actor young and old were intense. the lyricism of this movie is simply magnificent. i felt the cold, the dampness, the starkness and disagreeing completely with someone else's comment on this movie, i found the score perfect. economical, to the point, letting us feel the story without suggesting it for us as Hollywood tends to do. also... directed superbly where the main character doesn't get cheap emotions out of us by making us 'cry' by crying. we suffer his plight a great deal more as he goes through the film just as is. superb, intricate, inspired. this film deserves great recognition and all the accolades a great movie should ever get. i recommend it greatly.

A truly beautiful, heart wrenching film 'The Italian' moved me so very much. Surely a filmmaker sets out to touch his audience and make them feel the pain of his or her characters and certainly we are drawn straight into the little heart of the young, innocent and passionate Vanya. I can not imagine a soul in the audience that would not want to instantly wrap Vanya in their arms to protect him and then take him home with them! The Italian is shot against a harsh cold Russian landscape and yet there is a certain love between the orphans at the orphanage,who only have each other to love and protect them and keep them on the right track. Certainly Italy is seen as the land of warmth, love and opportunity in comparison. But the real warmth and love in this film resonates from this wonderful little actor behind Vanya. He could not be much older than the 6yr old he plays and yet he was able to convey more emotion, devastation and warmth than many of the adult actors i have watched of late. Highly recommended!!!

An earlier posting compared this film with Spielberg's "AI", a robotic boy with artificial intelligence with the capacity to form emotional bonds, a sort of interesting point, as this film itself aims a bit lower than the intelligentsia level, more at gut level emotions, since its main character is a young boy in a rundown Russian orphanage who spurns the rich Italian couple who wants to adopt him in favor of going on a treacherous journey to find his mother. And to throw a few more logs on the flames of passion, the orphanage's director collects a nice sum for adoptions of poor Russian youth by wealthy foreigners, and hence sets out with her part-time lover and assistant to trail and apprehend the kid with the help of the police, whom she pays off, as he searches for his mom. It doesn't fail to be moving, but in the department of originality, it utilizes a lot of the usual devices as it goes through its well-presented drama.

I saw "The Italian" with a friend I have known for 40 years. He has two sons, now grown up. I could only think about how lucky they are. We and the entire audience were deeply affected by this story of the effects of poverty, abandonment, the market for children, and the inexplicable drive of boys to return to their mothers, even when they have been sent away by them. The performance of the little boy who plays the central character is astonishing, absolutely remarkable. The director is a magician. The desolation of person and of place is captured in such a way that disbelief is almost total that such things can still be ongoing in this world of great wealth, albeit selectively concentrated . All of the actors, all little boys, two young girls and a few young boys in their teens--all are so engaging that we are stunned by the loss their characters and the real little boys whose story the writer and director tell suffer. This is 2007, the film was finished in 2005 and set only three years earlier. We wonder, How can this happen to little boys, and girls? And what effects follow? We see some of those effects in the older children. Then one recalls that this sort of thing is not limited to Russia but is common here in the States and all over the world a reality--the turning of an unwanted life into dross by neglect and abandonment. Every mother and father should see this film and then go to their son and tell him how much they love him, and think about little boys languishing in orphanages. One wants to do something after seeing this film, anything to relieve such boys of their horrific fate. Their tenderness for each other is stressed by the filmmakers. This is something that bears remembering. When kids aren't taken care of, they do find ways of caring for each other. They are resourceful in face of neglect, punishments, indifference, poverty. But many fall to pieces.... That now and again one little boy MAY NOT have been destroyed utterly in this way, as suggested in this film, is the source of the film's beauty. The face of the little boy here is unforgettable. The suggestion of a life having been wasted reflects and is reflected by the setting. One can only ope that the film will be widely seen.

Good film, but not so strong and impressive for Oscar nominating (this film has been delegated from Russia). Humane, family movie. About child love. Something similar with Spielberg A.I. but realistic not fantasy. From technical point of view good screenplay and good main actor but awful sound and weak, Imperceptible music score. If you have nothing to do you can watch this movie, but don''t wait something especial. But in compare with other new Russian films, it differs in the best side. Some international prizes to prove it. And Kolya Spiridonov is great. He played very well. But unfortunately, very often young actors don''t became a true movie stars. It''s interest to see him after 10 years.

This film is an absolute treasure! It is not only well done, and I don't mean super effects or huge budget, but well done from a true Cinematic and directorial approach, it also has a very interesting script. Most importantly, this film has a soul; it adds humanity to our consciousness, which is rare in this "postmodern" age we live in. Acting is excellent especially if you take under consideration that most of the characters are children. Like any great film, it speaks of the personal story and goes beyond, dealing with bigger issues. Moreover, this film follows the great Russian film tradition, reminded me of Tarkovsky, even though the style is very different, and more recent film "The Return" which came out of Russia couple years ago and won international awards.

Six year old Vanya Solntsev lives in a crowded rough orphanage in remote Russia. An Italian couple arrives looking to adopt him. He gains the nickname "The Italian". Despite pressure to go to Italy, he becomes obsessed with finding his birth mother. With the help of the older kids, they steal his file and he runs away to track her down.

It's a brutal and yet slightly touching world of an unusual family. It takes a little while to center the movie around the little boy. Honestly, the movie needs to point the camera at the kid and follow him for the first twenty minutes. There are so many little kids that it takes too long to pick him out of the pack. Other than that, this is a good Dickensian tale. It has violence but the kids live in this world as if it's normal.

_The Italian_ is a touching film about the precious humanity of one orphaned, six-year-old Russian boy. The film has many strong points, and it is hard not to be moved by the child's desperate, purblind plight.

However, the unfortunate political subtext of this film seems utterly lost on all of the other reviewers here thus far. In short, our natural compassion for abandoned children's welfare is manipulated by this movie, and the resulting impact of this film in Russia has been and will be precisely the abandonment of thousands of precious children who would otherwise have stable, loving homes. This film lies squarely in the detestable Russian tradition of using the plight of the multitudes of Russian orphans to score nationalistic political points. Note how this film would affect someone who knows nothing about the true situation of orphans in the Russian Federation. The viewer would come away feeling that orphanages are filled with greedy administrators eager to "sell children" to "foreigners"-- children who really belong in their "homeland," because, after all, the film subtly implies, the "loss" of these children to foreigners is somehow connected to the loss of national prestige in Russia. Many a nationalistic politician in Russia has made precisely this political pose, and the direct result of this has been the unnecessary, continued suffering and abandonment of untold thousands of Russian orphans. This film masquerades as a plea for children's welfare, but it has only hurt the very children it pretends to defend.

I have worked in Russian orphanages. The reality this craven and ignorant film denies? The staff of orphanages are, by and large, without doubt the great, unsung heroes of Russia, and there are thousands upon thousands of desperate children whose placement in stable and loving homes has been HALTED because of politicians who push the imbecilic and inhuman chauvinistic ideology seen in this film.

This film is saved from being a sentimental tearjerker by the performances of the wonderful cast. Set in a children's home in northern Russia, just as the long winter gives way to a miserable wet spring, the story is an absorbing tale about a little boy who tries to find the mother who abandoned him as a baby. While almost Dickensian, the home is run by kindly people doing the best with what they have, which is nothing. Mostly losers, conscious of the fact that they never reached their full potential, or even half their full potential, they try to cope with the collapse of order in modern Russia.

The children are mainly left to their own devices, especially the older ones who resort to petty crime and prostitution to survive. Little Vanya should be able to read, but no one seems to be teaching the children, they just exist.

Other than the standout performance of Lolya Spiridov, in the lead, the ones who caught my eye were the home's director, who looked as if he had been born a dissipated alcoholic, and the assertive baby broker known as "Madame" who would be right at home selling condos in Florida, the sweet faced red-haired Irka, who sells her body to truckers, and the tragic mother who tries to late to find her child. She marched around in furs with wads of bribery cash, reminding people that she could be very generous in return for information.

At first I could not understand why Russia would allow a film showing a dark underside to be made, then I realized that it was an indictment of the women who "lose" their children at railway stations and otherwise neglect to raise their children, and the practice of foreign adoptions for money.

Definitely a film to see.

Found this to be a film I would see over again. Only complaint was sub titles were incomplete so I had to guess about the dialog. The boy playing Vanya was so believable and everything he felt could be seen on his face. All of the actors were great. Would recommend this film highly. I found no political content. You would have to be looking for it to find anything like propaganda. Just a mesmerizing film. So sad were the scenes in the orphanage, although the affection between the children was so sweet. I thought Vanya's journey to find his mother was so fraught with peril it kept me worried about him. Made me wish I could understand Russian. The older children made it seem they did what they had to for survival. I liked how they helped Vanya as well as the people who helped him on his journey.

This is one of the most satisfying films I've had the pleasure of watching in quite some time. Russian cinema is notable for its stark and unvarnished portrayal of life, and this piece is true-to-form. (Disney this ain't!) While it is very difficult to take in the conditions under which dozens of adorable, abandoned children must get along day-to-day in the grim confines of a Russian orphanage, it is absolutely enthralling to witness one little boy's fierce determination to find his true place in the world. Ostensibly this film was "inspired by true events" and while it is of course difficult to know just how much fact ultimately found its way into the screenplay, it's easy to imagine that the real-life orphan who boldly set off across-country in search of his birth mother must have had incredible strength-of-character, particularly for one so young. The producers did a wonderful job of balancing the elements of what could easily have become a rather depressing and hard-to-watch movie. The heavy tension of the boy's constant struggle against huge odds is beautifully broken up with little snippets of humor and compassion. With the exception of a single character who necessarily functions as the lightning-rod for the viewer's outrage, the antagonists are portrayed not as stereotypical villains, but as humans who are doing their best to eke out their survival in very difficult circumstances. Above all, we never forget that little Vanya -- tough and resourceful though he is -- is still a small and vulnerable child. Remarkably, never once during this film did I feel I was being served up anything contrived or absurd . . . in fact, at no time did I find it necessary to engage in the usual "suspension of disbelief" that so typifies the viewing experience for Hollywood films. While this movie will do little to entertain those who crave hormonally motivated plot-lines and adrenaline-charged action, it's definitely very worthwhile for drama-lovers in the 30+ crowd.

"The Italian", a debut film by Andrei Kravchuk, is an outstanding film by any standard; and yet the film failed to win any major awards – not even the consolation of a Best Foreign Film Oscar. It won the minor category of Children's film award created for the purpose at Venice, but nowhere else, as if a film about children automatically becomes a children's film.

Three reasons spring to mind; it was a commercial dud possibly due to lack of commercial skills of the makers; contrary to public perception, shock value and financial success rules the fate of a movie even at the top festivals where the judges are mostly the mega-stars from Hollywood and around the world; and the debut production of a young person from a poor country still on the other side of the divide stood as little chance of an award as of Castro winning a Nobel Peace Prize.

So what did I find exceptional in the movie? To start with the least important, the cinematography was par excellence. The depiction of desolate, gloomy environment of Russian winter, with telephoto shots of barbed wires quivering as if in the cold air; the claustrophobic shots of vast landscape (even if done through back projection) from the inside of cars and train were awesome.

The second most outstanding quality of the film was the acting, particularly by all the child actors. It wasn't just great; it was breathtaking in its realism, as if the kids were chosen from an actual asylum which they weren't. The adults had no chance to compete against such talent, but managed to perform professionally.

The most outstanding characteristic of the film got to be the director, whose command in every field – music; editing; locations; camera angles; choice of lenses and suppression of any tinge of sentimentality – was evident.

I don't accept it's a rehash of Dickens's Oliver Twist suggested by some commentators. The harsh brutality of criminal gangs of 18th century Britain in Oliver Twist has nothing in common with the sad declension of Russian society and morale since the glasnost. If anything, the story has more in common with the magical realism of Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.

That's why the unsentimental ending gels with the mood of the movie.

The Italian is a wonderful and heart warming film, a great performance by it's staring young lead actor, Koyla Spiridonov. I was reminded of a similar film I had just watched, Under the Same Moon, which also was carried by an equally strong performance by it's young actor. Movies like these have a real chance to include a huge supporting cast which can sometimes be great for the film, but other times overshadows the main character and their story. The Italian's side characters are under developed but in this case that is for the best, the young boy is such a strong character that he is all that is needed. In Under the Same Moon the opposite of that works better, where the supporting characters help the audience connect to the main characters. The ending I felt was very beautiful, went away from a typical ending, maybe a bit cheesy, but if you really get into this story then why would you want anything else for this young man.

It seems like this film is put together by so many loosely connected, pedestrian pieces that it barely reflects the true concept of a film. Even by the end of the film, the different pieces fail to come together and produce a profound, satisfying feeling for the audiences. The director dabbles all over the place but can not come up with even one scene that he hopes would be touching and profound. The 6-year-old orphan did have a wonderful performance but the director never succeeds in adding depth and dimensions to his character. Instead, the film is only left with one-dimensional characters. I don't understand why so many viewers rave about this film. It is at its best a mediocre film that is not even able to match some of the conventional Hollywood films with fully developed characters. A major failure for the director.

One of the reviewers was trying to convince us that this movie is nationalist, because it portrays orphanages and their staff in negative light. I have to strongly disagree. The bleakness of day to day life in Russia in transition, that this film vividly brings to life, can hardly be a fodder for any nationalist propaganda. Most of Hollywood movies are way more nationalist and self-deluding than anything we saw in this powerful little movie. Director Andrei Kravchuk tells this tragic, but ultimately uplifting story with just the right amount of sentiment.It ends with a slight touch of fairytale. After all, most of the time, life is a mix of tragedy and endless hope.

Somewhat dull Russian film touches on a few poignant topics centering around a young orphan's adoption dilemma, but rarely achieves the emotional pull it should have. Mainly taking place inside and around an aging orphanage, the initial introduction to the gentle dynamics inside this home feel mediocre at best. Whether most performances lacked charisma, the poor translation from the Russian script, or an unhealthy disconnect between audio and video synchronicity made the film more of a bore, I'm sure it was a combination of the three which effectively rendered most potentially moving scenes lukewarm.

The Italian, on paper, reads with noble intentions. But played out, the film feels surprisingly melodramatic and manipulative. The film's main actor, a young boy named Kolya Spiridonov, may look the part but cannot carry the demanded weight. Springing from uncomfortable post-editing, there usually feels like an unintentional eeriness surrounds the boy while observing his performance. The pain one abandoned child would harbor is completely relevant to this story, but Spiridonov clearly has not been given enough coaching to prepare for the part, and instead it feels like the filmmakers substituted one negative emotion for a less authentic one.

Picking up a considerable amount once our young star actually proceeds to undergo his brief journey, it is already too late in the act to start building momentum that was needed earlier. It all amounts to one of those unfortunate circumstances where a heavy, underlying relevance found in potent themes ends up being trampled by incompetence, either from the misguided direction, technical miscalculations, or all around award-pandering mentality this surprisingly insignificant foreign film offers.