User Reviews

Having seen the trailer for the film, I was intrigued. If one doesn't catch an Italian film cycle, it's almost impossible to see a film from that country lately, even in a cosmopolitan city like New York. This film has just been released for a commercial run. Having seen "Mediterraneo" from the same director, Gabriele Salvatores, was another reason for taking a look at this movie.

The film depicts the horrors that Italy lived in the 70s with a wave of kidnappings. While a lot had political undertones, the fact remains that a lot of children were kidnapped for a ransom.

The idyllic way the film unfolds, with the children running freely in the wheat fields, is a sharp contrast of the mystery that is hidden, in a hole, by the abandoned house where they go to play. Michele, the boy at the center of the story, discovers the dark secret that will involve his own family and will end in a tragedy.

This is a story about friendship, loyalty and the realization of the ugliness behind what appears a serene, if poor, family life. Giuseppe Cristiano plays the young boy with conviction and makes us believe he is that boy presented in the story. It also speaks volumes how children interplay with others of their same age no matter whether they are rich, or poor.

The director is to be congratulated for dealing with the subject matter and making us care about a little boy that had the courage to save a life. We'll be looking forward other films from Mr. Salvatores, very soon.

In the field in the country of Italy, the ten years old Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) accidentally finds a weird boy in a hole in an abandoned farmhouse. He gives water and feeds the boy; he finds his name, Fillipo (Mattia Di Pierro), they are of the same age and Michele becomes his friend. In his innocence, Michele finds the nasty secret hidden by his family about Fillipo.

"Io non ho Paura" was a great surprise for me. I have just watched this movie and I did not have any information about this original and sensitive low paced story of innocence and compassion. The screenplay is perfect, developing the characters and disclosing the secrets through the innocent eyes of a ten years old boy, having a sensational plot point, in a wonderful landscape and a very sentimental soundtrack. The direction and the cinematography are remarkable, and when Michele rides his bicycle at night, we can see the night creatures in the fields. The performances of Giuseppe Cristiano, in a beautiful and morally strong character, and Mattia Di Pierro, in the role of a defenseless victim, are awesome. This awarded "Io non ho Paura" is an unforgettable gem to be discovered by lovers of a great cinema. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Eu Não Tenho Medo" ("I Have No Fear")

To me this is one of the best movies I've ever seen. A sort of a thriller, miles away from a Hollywood thriller and yet the suspense builds up every other scene, relentlessly, but peacefully.

Sunny (we are amid miles of golden wheat, where these children run with their bicycles unknowingly towards their destiny . There is no rush or heart pounding mystery, but it gets your interest fully from the very beginning with the title presentation.

The beautiful photography shows us at its best the enormous extensions of ripe wheat, ready to be collected, and the patterns the wind creates by playing with it. This field plays a fundamental role in the development of the story.

I don't see the close ups of different field little animals as negatively as Ralph Michael Stein says in his previous review. To me not only they are very interesting to see --at least one of them was totally unknown to me, city dweller that I am-- but they add a certain naivetè, like a certain magic, part of a child's view of the most common things.

Besides they establish the location, a rural one, where little animals are usual things, so much so that our 10 year old boy never looks at them. He saw them too many times to be surprised by them, as we could be. All the children are spectacular actors, the two main characters specially, and maybe because of that, they take much of the screen time. The rest of the cast as perfect as real people. The movie develops into a more and more complex crucible due to the human intervention, always unpredictable and usually determining catastrophic decisions.

The extreme close ups --one eye only, etc.-- are very effective to emphasize whatever is going on in the brain of that character. The script is superb, the direction also. The music fantastic --some of it Vivaldi, no less!--.

Extremely watchable and entertaining.

I don't know what it is about Italian directors, but it just seems that they are more interested in making classic movies than their American counterparts. They don't rely on body counts, car crashes and pyrotechnics. Instead they tell stories and use beautiful images and scenery to enhance it. In "Io non ho paura" we are treated to a coming of age fable that indeed makes one feel young again. We see the world through a ten year old's eyes and sadly, we see how reality starts to over take the innocence of youth. Michele lives in an economically depressed part of Southern Italy. He has a father that is often absent and surroundings that come straight out of Dickens. However, even with very little, he manages to entertain himself and little sister. One day while retrieving something for his little sister, he makes an odd discovery, a child, living in a hole, far away from anywhere. He soon comes to see that this child is being held captive. Of course, being a ten year old, Michele has many wild ideas about why the child is in the hole. However, as the film progresses, Michele starts to grow up and realize what a harsh world it can be. What really makes this movie are the beautiful shots of Southern Italy, where golden fields go as far as the eye can see. And although the film's ending is a slight letdown, overall it is still a wonderful film. Here is hoping that some American directors might find their souls and start trying to emulate this type of cinema. Bravo!

I have been critical of films that sidestep issues of conscience for broader appeal, so when a film comes along that tackles the issue head on, it is important to take notice. Set in Southern Italy in 1978, I'm Not Scared by Gabriele Salvatores (Mediterraneo) is about a child who discovers a small lad hidden in a cavernous hole near an abandoned farmhouse and acts with courage and compassion to "do the right thing". The film is partly a standard commercial product with a predictable plot, sentimental music, and pseudo-lyrical slow motion shots but it also embodies an artistic sensibility that expressively captures the world of a child in its wonder, innocence, and beauty. Similar to the 1996 film La Promesse by the Dardenne Brothers, it is a film about a young boy's awakening of conscience.

Ten-year old Michele, exquisitely performed by first-time actor Giuseppe Cristiano, is outgoing, intelligent, and strong-willed and there is a great deal of warmth and knowing in his face that makes us instinctively care about him. Michele and his friends play in the vast golden wheat fields during summer and all seems idyllic. When Michele looks for a pair of glasses lost by his sister Maria (Giulia Matturo), however, he makes an unexpected discovery. Beneath a straw-covered plank in the ground he finds Filippo (Mattia Di Pierro), a scared, dirty, and almost blind boy of his own age. The child, chained to a stake and barely alive, is subject to hallucinations and believes that he is dead and that Michele is his guardian angel. We don't know if the boy is a "wild child" or the victim of an unspeakable crime. Instead of reporting his finding to his overburdened mother (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), or his moody working class father (Dino Abbrescia), he keeps the secret to himself, bringing bread and water to the starving boy and the two develop a mystical bond of friendship.

When Michele finds out the shocking reason that Filippo is in the cave, he discovers the strength within himself to stand up for what he thinks is right even though it leaves him open to potentially damaging consequences. I'm Not Scared does not idealize children and paint all adults as evil. The children can be ruthless in cruelly teasing the weakest members of their group and in selling out to the wrongdoers for trifles, for example, just to sit at the wheel of a car. The adults commit a heinous crime out of the desperation of poverty or for unstated political reasons but their love for their own children is clear. Based on a novel by Niccoló Amminiti, I'm Not Scared is part suspense drama and part coming-of-age story but cannot be neatly categorized. It is has a strange otherworldly and mythical quality to it, like a cinematic dream and the result is not vacuously uplifting but powerfully moving. In discovering the cave where Filippo is hidden, Michele truly discovers a cave "filled with gems and gold".

Perceptible drama filmed with sensitivity and good feeling . Sensational film that dispenses a brooding plot and considered to be one of the best Italian films of the 2000s , in fact was voted one of the best pictures by professionals and critics . Well directed film by Gabriele Salvatores , including a stirring story and screenplay by Niccolò Ammaniti , who tried to create an agreeable flick plenty of sensitivity and metaphor by tackling a description about a bright ten-year-old boy who finds several surprises on his early life . In southern Italy, Michele , a fine little boy , along with his friends visit an old rotten house on the outskirts of their small Italian village . Michelle (Giuseppe Cristiano , director Salvatores interviewed nearly 600 boys for the part , ultimately settling for novice Giuseppe, the son of a Fiat car worker) nearly meets another boy chained in a basement hidden outside his village, but fears to speak of it . Putting together what he learns from television, he starts dealing with the blind boy, his own parents , and a series of unexplained visiting strangers such as Sergio (Diego Abatantuono) , with a high-profile kidnapping that has the entire nation on edge . As Michelle lives with a dysfunctional as well as impoverished family formed by his intimate mother Anna (Aitana Sánchez Gijon) , father Pino (Dino Abbrescia) and brother . Michelle hearing behind doors and he aware horrible happenings . He is so interested in these mysteries that exacerbate his ingenuity and imagination . As Michelle begins to investigate all the secrets of people visit his home , of his family and their stories , but he finds out a terrible conclusion . Who can you trust when everyone's a suspect ?

It's a brilliant and touching story although sometimes is slow moving and tiring but is developed with intelligence and sensibility . In the picture are treated ethics and morals themes narrated with great sense of fairness and ductility . This is an intense as well as sensitive drama dealing with a little boy who meets another filthy, incoherent kid locked into a cellar , where is kept prisoner . A coming-of-age tale in which he discovers the sense of life about dark family secrets, friendship and compassion . This slow-moving and intelligent picture is well set in Southern Italy of the 70s . This film was loosely based on a true story of a kidnapped boy from Milan and the novella written about the incident . Enjoyable and thought-provoking picture starred by a phenomenal little actor , Giuseppe Cristiano . Sensitive film full of feeling , haunting mood-pieces , wonderful scenes and sense of wonder . Colorful picture , including marvelous frames , being mostly filmed at Southern Italy and including sunny outdoor scenes . This extraordinary flick spells through intricate patterns of images , sets , sound and color . His style is pretty much dry in the atmosphere as in the fresh dialog , as well as realistic , and including pleasant elements as when the little boy runs on the cereal countryside ."I'm Not Scared" is one of Tornatore's undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in his filmography where shows efficiently an interesting story and shot at the height of his creativity , with some peculiar characters , as the main starring boy , his lovely mummy magnificently performed by the Spanish Aitana Sánchez Gijon and the grudge visitor well played by Diego Abatantuono . Splendid , luxurious photography with juicy atmosphere is reflected on the marvelous outdoors in the country by cameraman Italo Petriccione , Salvatores's usual , being shot on location in Apulia, and Basilicata, Italy . As the film is mainly told from a child's point of view, director Gabriele Salvatores instructed his director of photography Italo Petriccione to shoot most of the film at a child's height.

This is a Italian/Spanish co-production perfectly financed by magnificent producers as Spanish Miguel Menéndez de Zubillaga of ¨Piedras¨ , ¨Amnesia¨, ¨Utopia¨ , ¨Camaron¨ as Italian ones such as Maurizio Totti , Stabilini and Riccardo Tozzi . The motion picture was stunningly realized by Gabrielle Salvatores . He was born in 1950, Naples, Campania, location where he often shoots his films . He is a very good Italian movies director ; Tornatore is a well recognized filmmaker both nationally and internationally, and in proof of it he won many prizes in several Festivals . The constant theme of his movies is the escape from the problems of the modern world and the most of his movies include philosophical themes . Almost always casts Diego Abatantuono ; frequently also casts Sergio Rubini . Longtime companion of Rita Rabassini , she's the former wife of Diego Abatantuono, who acted in many of Gabriele's movies and is a close friend . Among his most important films are ¨Nirvana¨ , ¨Amnesia¨ , ¨Educazione ¨Siberiana¨, ¨Marrakech Express¨ ,¨ Quo Vadis baby ¨ , his successful and Oscarized ¨Mediterraneo¨ and of course this ¨I'm not scared¨ . Rating : Better than average . Worthwhile watching .

I personally really like movies that portray childhood the way I remember it--kids doing kid-like activities and adventures, summers with free time to wander and explore, and seeing the way kids think. They don't quite see things as adults do. The kids in the movie were quite realistic.

I think that Michele, the main character has more awareness and sympathy for people than most kids as evidenced by the stories he writes and reads to his sister. After he finds a child in a hole in the ground he writes a story about a child hidden away. Yet he reacts like a child in that he doesn't realize that there is something illegal going on, at least at first. The story unfolds slowly but steadily.

Because this movie is about kids and some suspicious people (Michele's father and friends)and the story is not written with a formula, there is an added dimension to the element of unpredictability.

I truly was inspired by the cinematography showing the idyllic scenes of the summer and wheat fields of Italy, including the insects and wildlife. I really liked the scene with the three threshers approaching Michele as he was crossing the fields. This scene also made us aware of the passing of time and probably summer soon ending. Also, there is, as there in many neighborhoods, a grumpy scary person (the hog farmer) who adds to the atmosphere of unpredictability.

The music is absolutely wonderful. And it is not just the music, but also listen to the skill of the musicians. Just because it is a string quartet playing, don't think it's boring.

In summary, this is a suspenseful, beautiful movie.

The real mastery in this film lies in the beautiful simplicity of it's childlikeness. There are few movies in Cinema that portray the innocence and unfeigned nature of children - before the loss of their transparency on the way to adulthood. I know the French film Ponette might come to mind for some lovers of cinema, but that was shot entirely from the perspective of little children almost to the exclusion of grown ups. This film shows the stark contrast of the two worlds by interweaving them, with childhood itself being one of the main characters, as landscapes were for John Ford in so many of his Westerns. Toward the end, it reaches for the sublime in moments of Michelangelo.

For me, the emotional interaction of these very young non actors made the movie spiritual to some degree by way of it's sheer honesty, without compromising the true spirituality in the principles and very adult themes of good vs. evil, betrayal, forgiveness, reaping what you sow, the coming Judgment, and finally - true friendship born of selflessness. Something we adults could learn more from by becoming more like little children ourselves, myself included. I believe this to be one of the best expressions of the young mind in realism, without crossing over into the fantasy that is so common in film today. How refreshing.

Of course all of this speaks for the excellence of the Director and the Writer, who gave us such a beautiful picture. Something that could only be pulled off by adults, albeit with at least the fond memory of a child, if not the heart of one. The cinematography, the very intentional and gorgeous classical score, along with much subtle but deep contrast, make this a modern classic that I will enjoy again and again. I hope you do too.

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I like to catch movies before the slip through the cracks of obscurity. One that I had one final chance to see (I could have seen it at the Philadelphia Film Festival) was I'm Not Scared, an Italian film that seems small, but opens up as the movie goes on to an almost fictional land of Southern Italy in the 1970s. The movie does look almost surreal, with its endless fields and lack of buildings. The surreality continues as the plot occurs.

Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) is an average 10 year old boy in Southern Italy. He enjoys playing small games with his friends and sister. When his sister's glasses fall off, he goes to find them and discovers a pit in the ground where he finds a body that's barely alive. It's a boy named Filippo (Mattia Di Pierro), who is chained in the pit and seems to be fed just to be kept alive. Michele befriends the boy and learns offhand why the boy was put there.

The story is a simple, forced coming-of-age story. The boy is forced to make decisions that are clearly too advanced for him, but he deals with it the best he can. He may seem like a hero, because he's helping out the boy in the hole, but to me he didn't seem like one, because he had to rely on other people to get his information. I did think that at times it was suspenseful, and it was always involving. It was beautiful to look at, also. But Michele just had no common sense-he didn't alert anyone about this. Sure, he may have been scared (which makes the title useless), but still! Why not at least try to get the proper authorities in on it?

One major qualm I had about it was the ending. I was able to tell it from about halfway into the movie. And then, after it, it's basically a deus ex machina story. The drama that had been created through the previous hour and a half is deleted by this cheap ending. I did think that the majority of the acting was pretty good. The drama was built up to an ultimately predictable and unsatisfying ending, but I'm Not Scared is still a good movie. Try to catch it before it's too late.

My rating: 7/10

Rated R for disturbing images and language.

I saw this film on the Berlin film festival without having an idea of what may follow, and I was very surprised: this picture is one of the best, at least of this year.

A young boy, growing up in a little village somewhere in Italy, discovers an other young boy hiding in a small hole. Nobody in the whole village seems to know anything about him- but then the enigma around the discovery is revealed when the first boy listens hidden to a conversation about the second boy - and this conversation is held by his parents...

First of all: A great acted movie. The young actors are splendid. A good script too: very moody, and exciting too. Then I have to mention the very nice landscape in which the film is set, and the cinematography capturing it. And so on... a nearly perfect film, and you will do a good choice when seeing it! I do not like superlatives very much, but: 10 out of 10.

In the film, entitled "I'm Not Scared" Giuseppe Cristiano portrays Michele, a ten year old Italian boy who's idyllic life in the countryside is interrupted one day with the discovery of a sensational crime. The crime? Filippo, (played by Mattia Di Pierro) the son of a wealthy family has been kidnapped, transported to the countryside, near a farm house and chained in a dark hole in the ground. Upon discovery, Michele must decide how to help the tiny, starving captive. Beginning with the basics like bread and water, Michele extends his aid to include short excursions of freedom. During the process, he learns his own mother and father are involved with the kidnappers. With the boy fast becoming his friend, Michele, has to decide where his allegiance lies. In the end, courage wins out and he learns the true value of friendship. A superior film with all the attributes of a classic. ****

In this lackadaisical Italian thriller, a 10 year-old boy named Michele discovers a deep pit in a field near his rural home. To his shock, inside the pit is a kidnapped boy, dirty, starved, and chained to the floor. At a delicate age when reality still can't quite override his imaginative fantasies, Michele is horrified but excited by this "adventure" and, unable to undo the chains, brings food and water to the boy in the hole while trying to figure out who kidnapped him.

This is a great set-up for a thriller (based on true events), and there are some wonderful scenes, particularly the ones between Michele and Fillipo (the boy in the hole). The acting is uniformly good and the Italian countryside is gorgeously photographed.

So why only 2 stars? Because it's boring. Really, really boring. The premise is interesting but after setting it up, the movie just lies there, going nowhere for long stretches of time.

A lot of the favorable reviews for "I'm Not Scared" mention that it "takes its time". Unfortunately, this is one of those instances where "takes its time" is code for "boring as hell until the kinda exciting conclusion".

"I'm Not Scared (Io non ho paura)" has a lot in common with the recent Russian film "The Return (Vozvrashcheniye)."

Both start off with poor pre-teen boys' bullying games that then intersect with their returning fathers' parallel adult realities. The contrasting conclusions reflect different national temperaments and the possible political messages in the films.

A major difference is the look that surrounds the contrasts between childhood innocence and male brutishness (abetted by cowed female complicity), where the Russian film is practically in a frigid black and white, the Italian film has the lush, sentimental cinematography of Italo Petriccione, who also worked with director Gabriele Salvatores on the dreamily beautiful "Mediterraneo."

The suspenseful thriller aspects roped me in, though the tension was undercut a bit by the Lavender Hill Mob antics of the conspirators, but the bumbling added to an uneasy feeling of unpredictability, aided by the suspenseful music by Ezio Bosso and Pepo Scherman.

We literally see the happenings through the eyes of the children, which is helped enormously by the unusually expressive and naturalistic child actors Giuseppe Cristiano and Mattia Di Pierro.

I was told this movie was in Spanish, but I was delighted to hear that it was in Italian! I have nothing against Spanish but I find the Italian language very beautiful. The music was nothing less than pleasing, either. And the visuals and cinematography are gorgeous!! So, on the technical and aesthetic ends of things, this movie made it worth seeing.

That aside, the story itself is pretty compelling. A boy, Michele, finds another boy chained captive in a deep hole. He struggles with the secrets he is learning about as we learn more about his less-than-perfect family life. The story is a mystery and thriller, but more than that; it's the drama of a child who has to grow up very quickly under unusual circumstances.

"I'm Not Scared" is a fantastic Italian thriller about childhood, specifically about facing your first tough moral quandary and coming face-to-face with the world's capacity for evil. I don't want to say too much about the movie's plot because it will give away too many of its surprises. The story gets rolling when 10-year old Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) and his discovery of a body hidden away in a pit near an abandoned farmhouse.

"I'm Not Scared" is a fantastic film that chills without cliché. The central conflict of the film involves the development of Michele's moral conscience and how his decision to act or to not to act will radically alter his world. It's a precisely, lovingly told tale that has a great ear and eye for the behavior and language of children. The cinematography is fantastic and the music is both haunting and beautiful. This movie's gonna stick with you long after you see it and is sure to emerge as a classic.

Go rent this one. Highly recommended.

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Confident, engaging and charmingly unique- a real success and a great example of the strengths of Italian cinema. Visually its a triumph and yet that never overshadows the other elements on display here- its steady pacing, strong performances, intriguing plot and touching script. The pacing and general demeanour of this one won't appeal to everyone but it holds up against that criticism with its subtle yet constant developments that lead to bursts of emotional power at the most unexpected of times, whilst nothing breaks the rules or boundaries of the tone that it sets itself. It maybe runs on a little long- simply slightly repetitive at times but its always moving forward. It's a smart mix of genres with some cerebral chills to keep you excited in between the striking realism of the film's portrayal of childhood and the light-hearted tone that keeps us up when the darker elements are at bay. This film is as hot as its setting- very.

I didn't know anything about this film before watching it today. It is refreshingly surprising to find such a good movie.

The film is visually fantastic, the scenery and colors are the narrator telling the story while the characters play necessary but secondary roles.

Personally, I didn't like the ending very much but it is easily forgiven after all the beauty exhibited.

The film takes you into a hole, into the dream world of a ten 10 year old surrounded by nothingness, where ugliness and depravity doesn't exist. The boy's mind turns a tragedy into a hopeful play of friendship, where the naivety of a child's essential wisdom shows us the way amidst a sick and lost world.

This film reminds us of how dangerous it is to grow up and forget.

There is a lot in this movie: an economical issue (suthern Italy poverty in the 70 's), the role of society's rules on kids behaviour, the tension between two completely different cultures in one country (the big, rich city of the North and the small rural village in the south), the developement of ten years old Michele's personality... I loved the richness and complexity of this movie, its capacity of capturing in few images so much about italian society. The description of the small village, its poverty and squalor, the humanity of people is great. The camera is used in a very interesting way, focusing from a child's point of view, from child's height. We see what a child would see, the summer's bright colour and the freedom of running through the fields all day long. Michele doesn't initially understand about kidnapping, he just feel that the crazy-like creature in the hole is a child just like him. He doesn't know why the kid is hidden there, tied by a chain. But he decides to relief his suffering, to bring him out of the hole, to let him see the sun on the wheat's field.

I'm Not Scared (2003)

This is just slightly offbeat enough it might grab you good. And the main character, a 10 year old boy, is really effective—believable, compelling, complex. That the movie isn't a masterwork might not matter—it has parts, and aspects, that are really strong.

The concept is basic—some back country thugs have gotten themselves into a kidnapping, and they aren't really quite good enough at the task to follow through. So the child is captive in a hole in the ground. That's weird and awful enough to get your attention. And it comes to light slowly, as the main character stumbles on this fact and then tries to befriend the captive boy without the kidnappers finding out.

Which of course isn't going to happen. The movie really gets intense in the last half hour. Before that it is slow to the point of too slow for my taste—lots of scenes of the kinds playing in the dry loneliness of some part of Italy made of wheat fields and little else. It's set in the late 1970s, so there is no real technology involved—no cell phones, no computers. Just an old television that the group gathers around for the news once a night.

The plot actually isn't what carries the movie, though I'm sure it's necessary as a vehicle for some. What works best is the whole situation—the simple folk with big ideas about the world in this beautiful but utterly isolated (and unnamed) place. If you tire of endless scenes of the kids running or biking through the great landscape, you realize the director didn't quite have much else to work with. A better sense of the kid's family, beyond the kind of rough clichés presented, would have given the movie needed depth.

As it is, it's strangely simple, and yet the simplicity is what matters, and what made like it as much as I did.

I'M NOT SCARED, despite the thriller-ish premise, is a film that's all about friendship: a growing bond that develops between an Italian boy and the kidnapped child he finds being held to ransom in a filthy pit. In many ways, it's similar to the later WW2 film THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, and viewing the two films side-by-side it's clear that the director of the latter production clearly mined this movie for inspiration.

Despite the praise lavished upon it, I found I'M NOT SCARED to be overblown and over-hyped, much like THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS. The central story of the friendship between the two boys is pretty dull, and given the nature of the premise not nearly enough is made of the repercussions. What incident does arise is muted and perfunctory, and I found it hard to like or care about any of the characters. The adults are all hateful, and the kids are sullen and rude. Even the kidnapped boy, with whom the viewer should easily empathise, seems slow-witted and unaware of his situation, which makes it hard for the viewer to sympathise with his plight.

The director certainly gets his mileage out of beautifully-framed shots of characters wandering through corn fields in the glorious summer sun, but overall there's little going on and virtually no meat on the bones of this atmospheric but lacking in substance movie. It's certainly not a film to remember.