In its depiction of a miserable Milanese underclass, this film was probably quite revealing in its day. However, I get the feeling that neorealism was never really director De Sica's bag, since here he decided to try and create some sort of modern fable centring around a boy that had been found in a cabbage patch by an old dear in the country. After spending most of his childhood in an orphanage, Toto ends up living in a shantytown in Milan. He organises the inhabitants into community action, and keeps their spirits up by swanning around with an annoyingly constant smile on his face and testing them on their times tables. That nobody tells him where to stick his times tables is beyond me, as these people have far more important things to think about, like where the next Pot Noodle is going to come from. Anyway, De Sica then uses a sublimely subtle dramatic device in order to highlight exactly why these poor sods are where they are. It's all down to capitalism of course, and in order to illustrate this, he has the miserables discover a fountain of oil on their land. Brilliant! To his credit, though, by this time he has given up on making a serious film, and the capitalists appear as severe caricatures, all fur coats and cigars. They want that land, but our mathematical hero will not support such nonsense. By a bizarre stroke of luck, his old, deceased guardian from the cabbage patch days appears in the sky and gives him a magic dove. He uses it to shower gifts on his mates, who prove just as greedy as the cigar men. I reckon this film was a missed opportunity. To address the theme of poverty , as not many film-makers had done until then, and then get caught up in a fairy tale, to me seems a bit daft. How come 'great' directors get away with child-like plot turns like the ones we see here? Hans Christian Anderson would probably have balked at the idea of having the poor folk flying off over the Milan Duomo and on to a higher place on broomsticks. De Sica, however, is proclaimed as a genius for this. Surely the fact that these people are so poor, that their faith is unswerving, and that miracles never happen to them, is enough for any story-teller to work on.
Review of Miracle in Milan
