Io non ho paura

I don't know what it is about Italian directors, but it just seems that they are more interested in making classic movies than their American counterparts. They don't rely on body counts, car crashes and pyrotechnics. Instead they tell stories and use beautiful images and scenery to enhance it. In "Io non ho paura" we are treated to a coming of age fable that indeed makes one feel young again. We see the world through a ten year old's eyes and sadly, we see how reality starts to over take the innocence of youth. Michele lives in an economically depressed part of Southern Italy. He has a father that is often absent and surroundings that come straight out of Dickens. However, even with very little, he manages to entertain himself and little sister. One day while retrieving something for his little sister, he makes an odd discovery, a child, living in a hole, far away from anywhere. He soon comes to see that this child is being held captive. Of course, being a ten year old, Michele has many wild ideas about why the child is in the hole. However, as the film progresses, Michele starts to grow up and realize what a harsh world it can be. What really makes this movie are the beautiful shots of Southern Italy, where golden fields go as far as the eye can see. And although the film's ending is a slight letdown, overall it is still a wonderful film. Here is hoping that some American directors might find their souls and start trying to emulate this type of cinema. Bravo!

The real mastery in this film lies in the beautiful simplicity of it's childlikeness. There are few movies in Cinema that portray the innocence and unfeigned nature of children - before the loss of their transparency on the way to adulthood. I know the French film Ponette might come to mind for some lovers of cinema, but that was shot entirely from the perspective of little children almost to the exclusion of grown ups. This film shows the stark contrast of the two worlds by interweaving them, with childhood itself being one of the main characters, as landscapes were for John Ford in so many of his Westerns. Toward the end, it reaches for the sublime in moments of Michelangelo.

For me, the emotional interaction of these very young non actors made the movie spiritual to some degree by way of it's sheer honesty, without compromising the true spirituality in the principles and very adult themes of good vs. evil, betrayal, forgiveness, reaping what you sow, the coming Judgment, and finally - true friendship born of selflessness. Something we adults could learn more from by becoming more like little children ourselves, myself included. I believe this to be one of the best expressions of the young mind in realism, without crossing over into the fantasy that is so common in film today. How refreshing.

Of course all of this speaks for the excellence of the Director and the Writer, who gave us such a beautiful picture. Something that could only be pulled off by adults, albeit with at least the fond memory of a child, if not the heart of one. The cinematography, the very intentional and gorgeous classical score, along with much subtle but deep contrast, make this a modern classic that I will enjoy again and again. I hope you do too.

http://fullgrownministry.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/peace/

I have been critical of films that sidestep issues of conscience for broader appeal, so when a film comes along that tackles the issue head on, it is important to take notice. Set in Southern Italy in 1978, I'm Not Scared by Gabriele Salvatores (Mediterraneo) is about a child who discovers a small lad hidden in a cavernous hole near an abandoned farmhouse and acts with courage and compassion to "do the right thing". The film is partly a standard commercial product with a predictable plot, sentimental music, and pseudo-lyrical slow motion shots but it also embodies an artistic sensibility that expressively captures the world of a child in its wonder, innocence, and beauty. Similar to the 1996 film La Promesse by the Dardenne Brothers, it is a film about a young boy's awakening of conscience.

Ten-year old Michele, exquisitely performed by first-time actor Giuseppe Cristiano, is outgoing, intelligent, and strong-willed and there is a great deal of warmth and knowing in his face that makes us instinctively care about him. Michele and his friends play in the vast golden wheat fields during summer and all seems idyllic. When Michele looks for a pair of glasses lost by his sister Maria (Giulia Matturo), however, he makes an unexpected discovery. Beneath a straw-covered plank in the ground he finds Filippo (Mattia Di Pierro), a scared, dirty, and almost blind boy of his own age. The child, chained to a stake and barely alive, is subject to hallucinations and believes that he is dead and that Michele is his guardian angel. We don't know if the boy is a "wild child" or the victim of an unspeakable crime. Instead of reporting his finding to his overburdened mother (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), or his moody working class father (Dino Abbrescia), he keeps the secret to himself, bringing bread and water to the starving boy and the two develop a mystical bond of friendship.

When Michele finds out the shocking reason that Filippo is in the cave, he discovers the strength within himself to stand up for what he thinks is right even though it leaves him open to potentially damaging consequences. I'm Not Scared does not idealize children and paint all adults as evil. The children can be ruthless in cruelly teasing the weakest members of their group and in selling out to the wrongdoers for trifles, for example, just to sit at the wheel of a car. The adults commit a heinous crime out of the desperation of poverty or for unstated political reasons but their love for their own children is clear. Based on a novel by Niccoló Amminiti, I'm Not Scared is part suspense drama and part coming-of-age story but cannot be neatly categorized. It is has a strange otherworldly and mythical quality to it, like a cinematic dream and the result is not vacuously uplifting but powerfully moving. In discovering the cave where Filippo is hidden, Michele truly discovers a cave "filled with gems and gold".

[See IMDb main page for this movie for cast credits-none are known outside Italy]

"I'm Not Spoiled" has enjoyed enormous European success and is being screened at art cinemas in the U.S. Shot in a bleak and desolate part of Italy where tourists are never expected, this story of a family thirty or so years ago is seductively engrossing. All is not what it seems. There is both mystery and madness.

Michele, a young boy about ten or so years old, plays with his sister and a small group of friends in empty fields and among ruins of once well-maintained farm houses, now mute ruins. There is no town as such and the only store seems to have few goods or customers.

Michele's father returns from somewhere and he's both loving and hectoring, bestowing presents and admonitions and allowing the two little kids to beat him in arm wrestling. He appears to be a fairly typical Italian paterfamilias, a nice guy. Mom is likable too.

Exploring a vacant, decrepit house Michele discovers a chained and brutalized boy his own age. Confined to a hole in the ground and blinded by any sunlight, the child is clearly a victim of some awful crime. Michele provides sustenance for the kid but makes no effort to alert anyone to the boy's predicament. And that's fortunate because the balance of the film deals with Michele's growing understanding of why and how this angelic-appearing child in white has been kidnapped and chained in a dank hole.

Michele makes a slow journey to a reluctant and frightened maturity as he begins to understand what is going on. As with so many children, he recognizes that grownups upon whom he depends may be more than they seem to be and much of what they are isn't very nice.

The acting, especially by the two young boys and Michele's sister, is convincingly real, free of affect. Much of the cinematography emphasizes the loneliness of a bypassed-by-prosperity region but the director, unfortunately, succumbed to some mannerized filming. Closeups of small field creatures are shots which add nothing to the story and inject a contrived artificiality.

Not many films successfully center a mysterious and terrifying predicament as a way of exploring children's emotional lives. "I'm Not Scared" does.

8/10

To me this is one of the best movies I've ever seen. A sort of a thriller, miles away from a Hollywood thriller and yet the suspense builds up every other scene, relentlessly, but peacefully.

Sunny (we are amid miles of golden wheat, where these children run with their bicycles unknowingly towards their destiny . There is no rush or heart pounding mystery, but it gets your interest fully from the very beginning with the title presentation.

The beautiful photography shows us at its best the enormous extensions of ripe wheat, ready to be collected, and the patterns the wind creates by playing with it. This field plays a fundamental role in the development of the story.

I don't see the close ups of different field little animals as negatively as Ralph Michael Stein says in his previous review. To me not only they are very interesting to see --at least one of them was totally unknown to me, city dweller that I am-- but they add a certain naivetè, like a certain magic, part of a child's view of the most common things.

Besides they establish the location, a rural one, where little animals are usual things, so much so that our 10 year old boy never looks at them. He saw them too many times to be surprised by them, as we could be. All the children are spectacular actors, the two main characters specially, and maybe because of that, they take much of the screen time. The rest of the cast as perfect as real people. The movie develops into a more and more complex crucible due to the human intervention, always unpredictable and usually determining catastrophic decisions.

The extreme close ups --one eye only, etc.-- are very effective to emphasize whatever is going on in the brain of that character. The script is superb, the direction also. The music fantastic --some of it Vivaldi, no less!--.

Extremely watchable and entertaining.