Sciuscià

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.

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.

"Sciuscia" … one word carrying the poignant context of a devastating story, as the Italianization of the word 'Shoeshine', the name given to the little 'ragazzi' who shined GI's boots for a living. We're in 1945, when Italy was still recovering from the ashes of WWII.

In one title, the tone is set, in an impoverished Italy, the main protagonists are all children carrying in their hands and hearts the hope of a slow rebirth. This light of hope is even conveyed in the opening scene when two kids, two friends, Pasquale and Giuseppe ride horses in the middle of a forest under a bright sunshine. Their fetish-horse is a white one, the fastest one, named Bersagliere, and both dream of owning him. Like in "Bicycle Thieves" or "Umberto D." the simplest things make the most inspirational statements about humanity, a bicycle is synonym of hope, a little dog is the only companionship an old man can dream of, in "Sciuscia", the horse is the dream, the exhilarating feeling of freedom inhabiting Pasquale and Giuseppe's hearts and the cement of a seemingly unbreakable friendship.

Friendship, if anything, "Sciuscia" is the heart-warming story of a friendship, before it would turn into the heart-breaking chronicle of its destruction, all the more tragic because both couldn't foresee their lives without each other, and De Sica doesn't need to make it said, it's obvious. Pasquale is an orphan who lives in Giuseppe's home and while Giuseppe, younger and more immature, complains about having to give part of his 'shoeshine' money to his family, Pasquale wished he had a family to give money to. These boys have hopes, dreams, principles and even an innocence that haven't been undermined yet by a tragic turn of events. Unfortunately, Giuseppe has an older brother Attilio, who works for a fence named Panza, Attilio incarnates the eventual danger that Giuseppe might end like him and it's not coincidental that we meet him when Giuseppe talks to his child love, a pretty little girl who becomes, at that moment, the last link to childhood before the irreparable would be committed.

As I said, "Sciuscia" carries the whole story in its title, it was in 1945, the GI were still here, and while the political authority was in reconstruction, many Italians made money through Black Market. Giuseppe and Pasquale were given a mission: to sell some US blankets to an old-lady, unknowing that Attilio and Panza would come up later passing as cops to steal the poor woman. Given enough money to buy the horse, they'll live the happiest parenthesis of their lives, riding Bersagliere, an exciting state of grace interrupted when they're questioned by the cops regarding the stealing of the old lady's money. Refusing to break the Omerta, and having no proof against them, both kids agree not to talk and patiently spend their time in the juvenile detention center.

"Sciuscia" turns into a powerful social commentary about juvenile delinquency as the only desperate answer to difficult economical conditions, when kids were put in the same trunk with prostitutes, when some were forced to steal to nourish their family. As the trunk leaves the street, both Giuseppe and Pasquale are precociously leaving childhood, incarnated by the little girl who follows the trunk. And the center is filmed with a documentary-like style that finds the right tone between pathos and cold realism, De Sica trusts our intelligence enough not to portray the kids as little angels, some of them lie, frighten the newcomers, provoke fights, but some others are indeed victim of cruelly sad circumstances and a slow bureaucracy, like the kid named Rafaelle who can't be put in a sanatorium despite a severe lung-condition. Even the administrators are not all one-dimensional, they're men who went through Fascism, a war, and only use violence because disorder would be much worse.

Fatally, Pasquale and Giuseppe have their friendships affected by their detention, starting at the moment they're sent in different cells: their cries and shouts, the way they keep their hands hooked to each other is an extraordinary display of desperate need to be together. Their separation only exposes them to the worst, to the influence of their respective groups that would slowly and progressively drive them apart. And it starts at the pivotal moment of the film when one of the guards pretends to hit Giuseppe to force Pasquale to talk, it's out of his love that Pasquale breaks his premise, and starts the turn of events that will destroy their friendship. Giuseppe will think of Pasquale as a snitch who sold his brother, and as revenge, sets him up in return, putting a deathblow on their friendship.

It's impossible to describe with words the tragic path the movie takes, and its extreme realism only makes it worse. If "Bicycle Thieves" is regarded as one of the saddest films ever, there still is an imperceptible light of hope at the end. In "Sciuscia", the film doesn't have a sad score, the main theme is the joyful riddle-like music of the white horse that reminds of childhood's insouciance but God, it cruelly contrasts with the slow transformation that involves the two protagonists, even physical, the loss of innocence is one thing, but what can be sadder than a destroyed friendship. Killing the myth of the friendship built behind the bars, the film demonstrates how authority, bureaucracy, order can annihilate the most beautiful aspects of humanity, and finally how fragile are the most beautiful virtues.

But I wonder if it's not sadder than the film itself, that one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian neo-realism, a movie I knew about through Scorsese's documentary about his Italian influence and Pauline Kael's review, has only 14 reviews (counting mine) while "The Avengers" already has 1207. One thing for sure, no last minute of a film haunted me as much as in "Sciuscia", while I desperately looked for something to keep my faith on humanity.

Sciuscia, or Shoeshine, tells a tragedy involving two boys, Pasquale and Giuseppe, both of whom try and make money from shining shoes, and also in dealing with black market goods. They hope to buy a horse one day (a wonderful opening shot of a horse running fast gets this point across since this is at its core a film of adolescence), but complications involving Giuseppe's older brother and gang land the two boys in jail just as they have enough for the horse. The film then deals with the boys in the reformatory/prison, over-crowded with conniving, shady influences as cell-mates, as well as the people who run the prison. To tell anymore of the plot would ruin it for the viewer who would go out of his way to find this - it's near impossible to find, which is a shame since The Bicycle Thief and Umberto D. are readily available in most stores and rentals - and it's enough to say that much of the film relies more on character than story. Because the director's dealing with a group of near total unknowns, they come first.

This film, by Vittorio De Sica, was made very soon after the War had decimated the country he lived in. He didn't just want to make this movie, he had to- these characters are as real as their backdrop, a country still in the aftermath of a fascist state of affairs, and since the film deals with children there's all the more emotion to it. The only, very minor liability in the film is that the drama in the material isn't as simple and everyday as DeSica's later, more famous efforts; if it was under different direction it could've become a forgettable tearjerker. But the tragedies of these characters, Pasquale and Giuseppe, is splendid in the humanity that they feel, as it unfolds, and by the end it rings as true as any other given neo-realist effort of the late 40's and early 50's. Shoeshine is one of those rarities that may give a tear-jerker to someone who isn't expecting one, and I mean that as a compliment. Note, if you find this tape, it may be rather grainy and slightly shifty in frame, and the subtitles aren't complete- not to downplay the worth of the film in and of itself, however.

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.