Miracolo a Milano (1951) - film review

One day, an old woman finds a baby boy in her cabbage patch and decides to adopt him, christening him Toto.  When the old woman later dies, Toto enters an orphanage, where he stays until he is 18.  On leaving the orphanage, Toto sets about trying to find work, without success.  He is befriended by a homeless beggar who invites him to stay with him in his shack on a piece of wasteland inhabited by other displaced people.  Driven by an impulse to do good, Toto organises the homeless men and women and helps them build a shantytown.  No sooner has he done this than the owner of the land appears, demanding that the site be cleared for exploitation.  Toto’s adopted mother comes to the rescue, giving him a magic dove that can grant him any wish he chooses...

After winning international acclaim with their neo-realist masterpiece, Ladri di biciclette (1948), Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini’s next collaborative venture was something of a surprise.   Miracolo a Milano is an extraordinary combination of Chaplinesque comedy, surreal fantasy and hard-hitting neo-realism.  The improbable mix of social realism and fairytale-style fantasy left the critics divided and the film has never enjoyed the popularity or status afforded to Vittorio De Sica’s other neo-realist works.  Nevertheless, the film deserves to be regarded as a masterpiece for its depth of characterisation, its unbridled creativity and, above all, the way it engages the audience with its characteristic De Sica humanity and relentless sense of optimism.

At the heart of this film is a tragic story of displaced people finding themselves the poorest of the poor after World War II.  A number of scenes in the film bear witness to the unbearable suffering of these people who have literally nothing other than the clothes they wear and who live within a few days from starvation.   Perhaps the best example of this is the lottery scene, where the prize is a small roast chicken (which gets devoured in a few minutes by its hungry winner).  With such a subject as this, De Sica could easily have made a heart-wrenchingly poignant portrait of homeless people struggling to survive in the aftermath of World War II.  Instead, he turns the subject on its head and transforms it, with the help of his screenwriter Cesare Zavattini,  into a magical fairy tale, giving free reign to his creative imagination and, so it would seem, an almost limitless sense of humour.

De Sica’s portrayal of the homeless people is evenly balanced – he appears to sympathise with their plight, yet he shows that they are morally really no better than any other strata of society.  In their state of poverty, they are content to find their own simple pleasures (singing that all they need is one pair of shoes, making a spectacle of the sun going down, and such like).  Yet, when they have an opportunity to better themselves (via the magic dove) they exploit it to the full and their list of demands is unlimited – fur coats, electric radios, dancing statues, and millions of millions of lira.  Human greed is universal, unavoidable – and when it takes hold it very nearly destroys the happy little Utopia that the saintly Toto has created.  Fortunately, De Sica finds a way – albeit an outrageously contrived way – to resolve the situation and give the film its uplifting happy ending.

It may be a work of pure fantasy with a tendency to go overboard in places, but, amid the comic excesses and some dodgy special effects, it is also a film with great humanity.  Its simple message is that all human beings have the same needs and aspirations and that no-one should be regarded as human litter.

© James Travers 2002

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