Miracle in Milan

 Vittoria da Sica's phantasmagorical masterpiece "Miracle in Milan" (1951) starring Francesco Golisano, Brunella Bovo among others. 

Toto (Francesco Golisano) is found in a cabbage patch by an old lady who nurses him until her falling health. The boy grows to be an obedient nice good humored person, stayed in a hostel and then set out on his own to live in a shanty town amongst the poor. 

The poor have nothing, absolutely nothing to live by, they live in ramshackle houses with barely anything to eat, hardly any money coming by, eking out a marginal existence. Among those staying in the shanty is Edvidge (Brunella Bovo) who is a maid to a family. 

The shanty town is obviously an occupied property belonging to somebody else so they come to take possession of the same, but the shanty unites against the outsiders. In the meanwhile oil is accidentally discovered in the midst of the square and the owner again comes back to forcibly take possession of the property. 

Toto in despair goes up to climb a totem pole where his mother hands him a good luck dove. What happens next is miraculous. 

Vittoria de Sica has stayed close to his neo realist style of film making. The film is shot in actual location with a ragtag band of actors, which shows the brutal reality of poverty in Milan. The special effects shown later in the movie is quite spectacular for a 1951 production. The film got a Cannes and a Fipresci. 

The main characters Brunella Bovo and Francesco Golisano have acted quite well in the movie. 

Los Olividados

 

Luis Bunuel's stunning masterpiece on poverty in Mexico, Los Olvidados (1951).

Staying close to the non realist style of film making, Luis Bunuel crafts an absolute masterpiece. Its about a group of destitute children eking out a living in Mexico. El Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) has escaped a juvenile jail and is back with his group of friends, one of which is Pedro (Alfonso Mejia). Pedro is one of many children of his mother and he always feels his mother does not love him enough. There's a scene where he pityingly asks his mother to love him and she repels him with brute force. 

Jaibo is out to take revenge on Julien who he feels ratted on him to be sent to the juvenule jail. In the fracas that ensues, Julien is killed and Pedro becomes an accomplice. Pedro is shit scared and immediately sets about doing the right things like taking up a job as an apprentice with a blacksmith. There Jaibo confronts him again and asks him to keep quiet and coolly steals a costly silver knife from the workplace. 

The blacksmith sends police to Pedro's house to arrest him for stealing a knife. His mom confronts him but he says he did not steal anything. They visit a police headquarters which sends Pedro to a reform school called the Farm. Again Jaibo confronts him there and steals 50 pesos from Pedro. 

The movie stays close to a new realist cinema that you can expect from Luis Bunuel. Its an old black and white print but enough to see the raw poverty of the village in Mexico. Everybody is struggling to make money there, Pedro's mom does washing for a dozen houses, a blind singer makes money by singing, life is tough, life is hard, there is crime, grinding poverty. 

Most of the characters are kids and they have all acted very well.  

Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter, a 1946 film starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard and directed by David Lean. It got Celia Johnson her nomination for the Oscars. An interesting story of two middle aged, married individuals falling in love unexpectedly and not able to do anything about it. It just happened just like that. Laura (Celia Johnson) is a happily married woman with two kids and a doting husband, and she always goes every Thursday to the townside by train and then she shops, changes her books in the library and goes to watch a movie, almost solo, and almost ritual like. She unexpectedly runs into Dr. Alec (Trevor Howard) who is a general practitioner and who also comes into town every Thursday to visit the hospital and relieve his friend of his duties. When Laura is standing too close to the tracks and one train passes by, some girt goes into her eyes, and Dr. comes to the rescue. One thing leads to another and in no time, their Thursday ritual gets more deeper and meaningful and they both realise that are in love with each other. Both also suffer from guilt because both have families to look forward to. Its a nice soft movie, not much of preaching going on, something that happened to two individuals without any hidden motive or malice behind it. Production values were quite good for that era. The background music by Sergei Rachmaninoff was quite exceptional.