Film Review
Niccolò Ammaniti's best-selling novel
I'm Not Scared (a.k.a.
Io non ho paura) is effortlessly
transposed to the big screen by Oscar-winning director Gabriele
Salvatores in this brutal but totally absorbing coming-of-age drama,
set during Italy's
Anni di piombo
(Years of the Bullet) in the 1970s, a time when terrorism and
kidnapping were rife in the country. With Ammaniti (one of
Italy's leading writers) contributing to the screenplay, the film is
every bit as effective as the novel in portraying the painful
transition from childhood to adulthood. Whilst the story is
hardly original (there is much to connect it with Bryan Forbes' 1961
film
Whistle Down the Wind) it is a
compelling piece, the most astute and poignant examination of a child's
loss of innocence, thanks to its flawless screenplay and a mesmeric
central performance from first-time child actor Giuseppe Cristiano.
The main strength of Ammaniti's remarkable short novel is that it
compels its reader to see the world through the eyes of a 10-year-old
boy. Things that would appear banal from an adult's point-of-view
are presented as strange and threatening, and with his simple and
direct prose Ammaniti constantly reminds us just what a fearful and
lonely place childhood is. The film achieves a similar effect, by
using cinematic devices that contribute to the illusion of a child's
perspective: the palette is dominated by primary colours, the camera is
held close to the ground, adults are mostly seen from a low angle, tiny
creatures that a grown-up would miss are frequently glimpsed and heard
in the foreground. So effectively does Salvatores put his
audience in the shoes of a solitary young boy that, as you watch the
film, you really do feel as if you are re-living those last traumatic
days of childhood.
There are few things more brutal and heartrending than the experience
of seeing a child's innocence being ripped from his grasp.
I'm Not Scared begins with the most
evocative portrait of childhood insouciance, a gang of children playing
contentedly in a sun-drenched field of wheat that looks like a series
of Monet paintings brought to life. But almost immediately we can
sense the presence of the demonic serpent in this lush garden of
Eden. A little girl is cajoled into taking down her skirt and the
central protagonist, Michele, is soon risking his neck in a dangerous
dare game amid the evil detritus of a house that looks like the set of
an American horror film. Then there is the first real shock:
Michele's discovery of a ghoul in a hole in the ground. The silk
cocoon of childhood is suddenly ripped and the events that follow will
see it gradually torn from Michele as he slowly comes to realise that
everything he has experienced so far is an illusion. The real
world is far more cruel and unjust than he could ever have imagined.
If anyone is deserving of an award for his contribution to the film it
has to be Giuseppe Cristiano, who makes a compelling hero as the brave
10-year-old Michele Amitrano. With minimal dialogue and admirable
restraint, Cristiano has no difficulty projecting his character's
conflicted inner feelings and he gives us what is pretty rare in cinema
nowadays, a totally authentic portrayal of a child as he makes his
first tentative steps towards adulthood. Just as the world
around Michele is visibly transformed as the drama unravels (becoming a
much darker, uglier place, scarred by man's reckless greed and
stupidity), so he himself changes and acquires a maturity that allows
him to deal with the challenges that come his way. In the end,
Michele is able to make the moral choice that frees him from the mire
of corruption into which his father has been drawn. By opting to
save his friend, risking his own life as he does so, he takes a stand
against the futile negativity of his parents' generation, a gesture of
defiance that is powerfully symbolic of Italian youth's mass rejection
of violence in the late 1970s.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In 1978, 10-year-old Michele Amitrano lives with his impoverished
family in a small town in Southern Italy. The acres of wheat
fields in the surrounding countryside provide a happy playground for
Michele and his gang. One day, Michele and his friends come
across a dilapidated farmhouse in which they play dangerous dare
games. As his friends make their way back home, Michele returns
to look for his sister's mislaid glasses and discovers a hole in the
ground covered with a metal sheet. Peering into the hole, he
glimpses a human leg emerging from a blanket. As he takes a
closer look, Michele is horrified by the zombie-like apparition that
suddenly appears. On his next visit, Michele realises that the
creature in the hole is a boy of his own age, chained and naked.
He gives the boy food and drink, and even takes him out of the hole to
play with him in the wheat fields, always taking care to return him to
his underground prison. From a television news report, Michele
learns the identity of his friend: he is Filippo, a boy who has been
abducted by kidnappers to extort money from his moderately wealthy
family in Northern Italy. Michele's happy summer is further
tainted by the arrival of a crude man from the North, with whom he is
forced to share a bedroom. One evening, Michele overhears this
man talking to his father and his friends and realises, to his horror,
that they are Filippo's kidnappers...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.