Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan), the resistance of neorealism

The drama of a miserable childhood, unemployment and social exclusion. Vittorio de Sica, a leading figure in Italian cinema from the 1930s to the 1970s, was in the 1950s one of the greatest champions of the neorealism movement. Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan) focuses all its time on the humble and the poor in a shantytown built on the outskirts of Milan.

Ingenuous, Totò has the audacity to believe in a just world. De Sica addresses the post-war years, driven by a desire to contribute to the moral reconstruction of Italian society. This is a filmmaker at the top of his art, who directed some of his most famous films in collaboration with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini: Sciuscià (Shoeshine) in 1946, Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) in 1948, Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan) and Umberto D (1952). Four films that participated in the neorealistic movement. His authentic characters were played by non-professional actors and filmed in natural settings without sacrificing the meticulous work put into framing and composing the shots. With Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan), his collaboration with Zavattini was at its zenith. Shot on a vacant lot on the outskirts of Milan where beggars had built huts, the film ends up with the need to escape into a fantasy world.

Following in the footsteps of Miracolo di Milano (Miracle in Milan), De Sica's next film, Umberto D, is also, in all its austerity, one of the most probing portraits of the desolation in Italy at the time.