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Shoeshine, 1946
Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi) are young friends who both come from an impoverished background. Together they have worked to save up money to buy a horse to share. When Giuseppe's older brother ropes them into a robbery, the two boys end up in a juvenile detention facility. While they pledge silence and solidarity in the face of the investigation into the robbery, the internal politics of the facility and the pressure of the investigation begins to fracture their loyalty to one another.
This is one of those Italian neorealist films that is bleak as all get-out, and yet utterly compelling until the last frame.
The two young actors at the center of the film give very strong performances, especially Interlenghi as the more sensitive Pasquale. Both boys want to be the strong silent type, and yet you can see how the different pressures weigh on them. In one particularly brutal moment, Pasquale is led to believe that Giuseppe is being badly beaten and must wrestle with whether or not to tell the police what he knows about the robbery.
And while the focus of the film is on the boys and their story, it also provides a pretty condemning look at the institutions and systems that repeatedly fail them. The men who run the juvenile facility aren't evil, but they are manipulative and it's pretty clear that the wellbeing of the boys is not their chief goal. When you consider the vulnerability of the boys in their care---the lack of resources in their families, or even the lack of a family at all--it becomes extra fraught.
All through the film the white horse--a beautiful animal purchased by the boys after the robbery--serves as a none-too-subtle image of hope. It is only fitting that the haunting final moments return the boys back to the presence of the horse.
A somber film, but a very good one.
Shoeshine, 1946
Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi) are young friends who both come from an impoverished background. Together they have worked to save up money to buy a horse to share. When Giuseppe's older brother ropes them into a robbery, the two boys end up in a juvenile detention facility. While they pledge silence and solidarity in the face of the investigation into the robbery, the internal politics of the facility and the pressure of the investigation begins to fracture their loyalty to one another.
This is one of those Italian neorealist films that is bleak as all get-out, and yet utterly compelling until the last frame.
The two young actors at the center of the film give very strong performances, especially Interlenghi as the more sensitive Pasquale. Both boys want to be the strong silent type, and yet you can see how the different pressures weigh on them. In one particularly brutal moment, Pasquale is led to believe that Giuseppe is being badly beaten and must wrestle with whether or not to tell the police what he knows about the robbery.
And while the focus of the film is on the boys and their story, it also provides a pretty condemning look at the institutions and systems that repeatedly fail them. The men who run the juvenile facility aren't evil, but they are manipulative and it's pretty clear that the wellbeing of the boys is not their chief goal. When you consider the vulnerability of the boys in their care---the lack of resources in their families, or even the lack of a family at all--it becomes extra fraught.
All through the film the white horse--a beautiful animal purchased by the boys after the robbery--serves as a none-too-subtle image of hope. It is only fitting that the haunting final moments return the boys back to the presence of the horse.
A somber film, but a very good one.