Popular reviews

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½

  If I had to evaluate the picture just on the basis of its technical merits, I would have to give it a flawless score. The great Vittorio de Sica and his crew have succeeded in bringing the film's magical realism to life on screen, thanks in large part to the film's outstanding photography, in which every shot, composition, and detail serves a purpose and looks absolutely magnificent. The juxtaposition of this with the high quality of the production design gives this slum certain delightfully quirky aesthetic that fits the movie. All of the characters, including the bad guys, have an endearing quality that suits the film's whimsical spirit.

  All in all, a film that works in many ways with a…

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  Review by Sam ★★★★½

  A genuinely charming and sincere piece of filmmaking, blending De Sica's neorealist sensibilities with a beautiful sense of fantasy and magic.

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  Review by Armando Maggi ★★★★½ 6

  I study literary and oral fairy tales. After my book "Preserving the Spell," I have been playing with a new project, a slimmer book, and one of the chapters has to do with the world above and the world below.

  Vittorio De Sica's Miracolo a Milano may be disappointing for those viewers who admire the director's realistic style. The fairy-talish spirit of this film comes from Cesare Zavattini, who co-wrote the screenplay.

  Miracolo a Milano has an agenda; it's an ideological film, unlike Ladri di biciclette.

  I can't help but compare it with Wim Wenders's Der Himmel über Berlin. In both films, we have angels coming down to intervene in our human ordeals. They come from an unknown world that…

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  Review by shookone ★★★½

  de Sicas cute fairy tale with cheerfulness effect. a children's movie, enchanting yet with the typical neorealist sensory set. babyface Francesco Golisano converts maestros actor-handling and -staging in a jiffy. the positive undertone wiffle-waffles into naive dinkiness and cuddly morals at times, but you know you can't get the blithe spirit out of italias most delightful cinepadre.

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★½ 4

  Miracle in Milan combines neorealism with childish fantasy. It's a film of joy within a impoverished world. Post-war Italy is shown here as a land of squatters, people left with nothing but their honour. It's a wholesome movie, depicting a unity of the masses as they stand by one another in struggle. The lead character brings kindness and structure to the community he joins, enabling a sense of dignity and self-worth to emerge. The poor are joined by angels, whilst landowners are the devils of this story. That post-war world really was a time to believe in change, though a few economic miracles later greed replaced that optimism. But there was a social consciousness in those few years that really…

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  Review by petarakrobata ★★★★★

  un milione di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni di milioni..piu uno

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  Review by PUNQ ★★★★½ 4

  Wonderfully carefree and uplifting among the doomed. Almost childlike approach to fantasy. And it just goes with the mayhem and expands on it! Right up my alley. Got to be one of Vittorio De Sica craziest creations. Adored it!

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  Review by BrandonHabes ★★★★★ 9

  Neorealism as fairytale, as storybook fantasy. A revisionist take on the genre so playful and optimistically feel-goody, it embarrasses the leftwing intelligentsia that wanted neorealism to remain a fixed formula. By proving the compatibility of allegory and realism, De Sica punctures the genre with a small patch of sunlight, breaks through traditional clouds of black-and-white miserablism, and rejoices “Good morning!” to the people freezing beneath. In a film that could’ve easily been dreamed by Fellini and scored by Nino Rota, De Sica and his musical composer Alessandro Cicognini transport us to a land that feels delightfully Felliniesque yet gratefully lacks all the indulgent nonsense. A land where “good morning really means good morning.” It is a film about the place…

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  Review by Tom Morton ★★★★ 2

  Film School Drop-Outs week 10: Italian Neo-Realism
  30 Counties 2017: Italy

  Like most people, I loved Vittorio De Sica's one-two punch of blissful heartbreak, Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D. I never stopped to wonder what his brand of distinctive, passionate sadness would be like as a surreal comedy that mixed Chaplin-esque sentiment with magical realism... and yet here's the answer! And it's pretty wonderful!

  This is recognisably the same poverty-stricken Italy as in those other films, but thanks to the influence of Toto - a boy found in a cabbage patch as a baby and raised by some kind of wonderful witch-goddess, why not - the poor and homeless come together to build a shanty-town full of music, laughter and…

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  Review by Luke McCarthy 1

  Marxism, but make it fun!

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★

  Winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951, Miracle in Milan finds Vittorio De Sica turning his imaginative components to broaden his close observations on post-war social reality. Based on a children's book written by Cesare Zavattini (who also assisted De Sica with the screenplay), it's a fable that depicts the victimisation and the displacement of the working classes by a capitalist system.

  The nature of the film is light and frequently playful as it tells of a baby becoming found by an elderly lady named Lolotta (Emma Gramatica) in her cabbage patch one morning that she comes to call Totò. She raises him until eventually falling sick and passes away. After her funeral, he becomes placed in…

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  Review by Jim Film ★★★★

  No one does Neo realism quite like De Sica unfortunately I don't believe he has the surrealist nuance quite so down here.