Sciuscia

Heartfelt stuff from De Sica once again this time capturing the lives of two young shoeshine boys working the streets of wartime Rome scrimping and scraping for family and the dream of owning a horse, soon trouble comes there way after being caught selling black market goods and the pair end up in a juvenile detention center, from here the friendship becomes broken as the two become separated and told different things from there cellmates, its all handled perfectly from the loyalty to the bitter feeling of betrayal and the whole sadness of the situation that these lost boys experience which is brilliantly played all the way through right to its gut-punch ending, performance-wise the kids are great and all do a fantastic job considering they are all first-time actors it also claims of being one of the earliest in the Italian neorealist movement, once again this is pure magic from De Sica and the film is rightly considered to be his first masterpiece.

Just two years before Vittorio De Sica changed the world with The Bicycle Thieves (1948), the universally famous actor/director made a small, simple and beautiful movie by the name of Shoeshine (1946). Taking place in war ravaged Italy, the film features the stories of two young shoeshine boys who are tasked with delivering black market goods and get caught in a web of intrigue. Once they are caught by the police, their friendship is challenged when they're sent to an overcrowded boy's penitentiary.

The majority of the film takes place in the penitentiary where the two boys (Franco Interlenghi and Rinaldo Smordoni) are separated from each other almost instantly. Forced into separate cells each holding five boys, they become the center of their own maelstroms when one mistakenly betrays the other. I won't ruin the whole picture other than mentioning that the main source of motivation early on is a horse they bought together.

The period sets the tone for the film. Despite a bouncy score that highlights every small victory experienced by the characters, the lack of sustenance and poor conditions of life in and out of the penitentiary keeps things gloomy. The boys eat gruel which the warden calls "passable", medical help is slow and ineffective and beds are riddled with lice. Even one of the more kind-hearted superiors finds objection to the state of things. Yet at one point one of the boys calls his new home "paradise" because of its only slightly better living standard than sleeping in an elevator.

The film is considered one of the first Italian neorealist works which would leave an indelible mark on Italian cinema and movies worldwide. The form contends with economic hardship and moral denigration as a canvas. Many times they would shoot in and around the streets of Italian cities and even hire non-professional actors to intensify the realism. Often this was for practical reasons. The aftermath of World War Two left the film industry (previously under the close watch of Mussolini) unable to maintain their studios.

The Bicycle Thieves stands as the pinnacle of Italian neo-realism but for my money Shoeshine is the better movie. Both stories are quite compelling but from an outsider's perspective, the multiple Italian customs and the research required to understand them are much more-a- plenty in Bicycle Thieves. Additionally the main characters of Shoeshine are children no older than twelve. While in many cases this would be a slight when comparing one movie to another, the actors in Shoeshine act much more authentically to their predicament. There is one scene where the boys trot a horse down the street as the other shoeshine boys either cheer in zeal, or jeer in jealousy. They preen and strut like they're the talk of the town, the belle of the ball, or to put another way; two poor kids with a horse. How can you not smile at that image?

There is a famous review of Shoeshine by the famous Pauline Kael where she mentions a "… petulant voice of a college girl complaining to her boyfriend, 'well, I don't see what was so special about that movie.'" She then claimed alienation from those who could not experience "the radiance of Shoeshine." In many ways I feel the same about it. If you're not effected by De Sica's first classic then you're not fully human.

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This is perhaps the most disturbing of all Vittorio de Sica's many masterpieces, as it deals almost only with children, mainly boys who aren't even old enough to know or understand what they are doing or what happens to them. The mood is a precursor to Visconti's terribly realistic masterpiece "La terra trema" two years later, but here it all happens in the bleakest parts of central Rome, and only the horse offers some kind of relief. The boys, who spend all their earnings to buy a horse they love riding, are lured into black market dirty business and get caught and end up in juvenile prison, where the sanitary conditions are horrible and the boys are crowded together into small dark cells. Naturally they want to escape. The only comedy moment of the film, in which you recognize the mature de Sica's splendid sense of human humor, is when the direction decides to give the boys some entertainment by showing a film, and naturally things happen during this performance. The direction as always in de Sica's films is splendid throughout like all the actors, and although the story is slightly exaggerated and dramatized, the impact of the realism is convincing and shocking enough. His next film "Bicycle Thieves" would be milder, while this is downright upsetting all the way through, and there is even one innocent casualty, who will make your heart bleed.

The first of three classic movies made within five years that placed director Vittorio de Sico at the forefront of the neo-realist movement is the kind of poignant tragedy that lingers long in the mind. Rinaldo Smordoni and Franco Interlenghi give astonishingly assured performances that belie their lack of experience in front of the camera, playing shoeshine boys who find their friendship tested by a spell in prison for selling stolen goods, and De Sica deftly sidesteps the sentimental pitfalls that such stories always present. If that devastating final scene doesn't move you, you're already dead...

I have watched the unforgettable and justifiably renowned Bicycle Thief, and the impressive Umberto D. I had long been wanting to watch Shoeshine and finally saw it last evening, enjoying it as movies are meant to be enjoyed - on a big home screen with my new projector. The movie starts on a perky note - two boys, close friends, exuberant at having bought a horse they both love. One is almost lulled into thinking that this will be a buoyant movie about friendship and a horse. It turns out to be several shades darker. It is De Sica's genius that he can pull you in so quickly and make you feel such strong empathy for the two boys as they are brutalized by life within a short span of a few days; their friendship souring and spiraling down towards an ominous end. Be warned, this is a depressing movie. But it is a gem nonetheless, and I know that several scenes will remained etched in my mind forever. In particular, De Sica captures in a starkly beautiful manner the quicksilver bonding and the territorial rivalries of the boys trapped in a bleak Dickens' style detention center. A must watch for any fan of that strain of Italian cinema from the 1940s and 50s.