Miracle in Milan

Miracle in Milan
by Vittorio De Sica

Miracle in Milan
Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Brunella Bovo, Emma Gramatica, Francesco Golisano, Guglielmo Barnaḅ, Paolo Stoppa
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: Italian (Original Language), Analog
Format: PAL

VHS Movie Reviews of Miracle in Milan

Movie Review: WARM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars

If you're getting colder try with this movie to fill yourself with warm hope in hopeless world.

Movie Review: Wow!
Summary: 5 Stars

If your soul needs nourishment--this film will help. If you've lost your soul, this film might give you a clue to where to find it. If you have no soul, you probably will be bored: go elsewhere.

Movie Review: Revolutionary Allegory
Summary: 5 Stars

In the rubble of post-war Italy, the poor construct a shantytown
and their leader, Toto, lends his good cheer,optimistic outlook and imagination to the downtrodden population. When opportunist elements from within the community and without try to reappropriate the land on which the squatters reside, the protagonist arms his miserable comrades with magic and imagination in their resistance to captialist control.

Throughout the film we are confronted with the absurdity of
capitalist domination and private property. The land is everybody's land, and the men who want to appropriate the poors'
labor and displace them from the land seem absurd. At one point,
in order to symbolize his power, the "owner" of the land, Signor Motti,
strikes a "Pharoh" pose. It is true that certain among the poor come forward to try and take advantage of their compatriots.
Some might use this as evidence of an innate drive in human beings for greediness; or, is it not in part a lack of imagination, a lack of alternative?

Capitalism has been in place for some two hundred years. The capitalist mentality is impressed on the bodies of all those growing up under it. Today, we are told that we have come to the end of history, and that capitalism is the only form of exchange that is natural. The abysmal failures of the socialist bloc reinforces this notion. However, the depletion of the rainforest, the impoverishment of the Third World, societies wealth used for the enrichment of a few while the rest work in fast-food restaurants and get poor education, betrays the fact that all is not perfect at this so-called end of history.

Certainly this calls for political action, a revolution of sorts.
And one quality that revolutionaries need is imagination, a vision to go beyond the current cynicism and defeatism. It is this message that De Sica's wonderful fable places in bold relief.


Movie Review: pure pleasure
Summary: 5 Stars

The plot is fragile beyond description and all but falls apart in the last third or so, but it works anyway--my gosh, how it works. Miracle is genuinely charming: what all fantasies and fairy tales aspire to but so rarely reach. The cast is perfect and the main song addictive. Now if only I could get all the words to it! I know there's something in there about wanting a pair of shoes, but the rest is just a jumble. Consequently, I have to make up my own lyrics and so wander through the house singing improvised verses about my cats.

Movie Review: Toto the Good saves the day in post-war Milano
Summary: 5 Stars

Old Lolotta (Emma Gramatica) discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She raises the child, but when she dies Good Toto (Francesco Golisano) has to enter an orphanage. One day he leaves the orphanage as a happy young man and goes to work in Milan. However, this is after the war and he ends up with the homeless and destitute, helping them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. When the squatters discover oil in the land, Toto has a vision of Old Lolotta, who gives him a magic dove that will grant his wishes. This is a good thing, because Mobbi, the Rich Man (Guglielmo Barnabo) wants to get at that oil.

With "Miracle in Milan" Vittorio De Sica has created one of the purest allegories since "The Wizard of Oz." You can certainly take this film at face value, as a charming little fantasy where the characters are reduced to labels as well as names (e.g., Bad Rappi and Little Edvige) and in the end good triumphs over evil. But you can also remember that this film was made in 1951, and that the post-war recovery was not entirely successful. Whether De Sica is condemning all European governments or just Italy's is debatable, but there is a none too subtle serious message to this film as well. You can watch it with your children, or grandchildren, and get entirely different readings of this film. Either way, this film is well worth viewing.

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