Miracle in Milan (1951)

 

Francisco Golisano in Miracle in Milan

This Italian film, directed by Vittorio De Sica, was a real oddity. Toto is an orphan found in a cabbage patch, and raised by a poor woman. Soon he is taken to an orphanage where he is educated and prepared for the world. 

All this is shown in the first five minutes of the film: a wonderful exposition, with almost no words. Then we see young Totò (played by the wonderfully innocent Francesco Golisano), aged perhaps 18, leaving the orphanage for the real world, yet quite unprepared for it, magnificently demonstrated by his greeting strangers with “good day “ as he passes them in the street, and getting a very suspicious and unwelcome response.

Then we move to the narrative proper: Totò lives in a community for the homeless, a shanty town, and becomes a kind of leader to them. His eternal optimism saves many of them from despair, and, in one case, suicide. 

So far we have a plot: the innocent, Christ-like figure, who is determinedly optimistic, so much so that he strikes up a conversation with the man who stole his bag – and ends up giving him the bag he so covets. 

At this point, we see lots of faces of the urban poor, and we feel compassion. This kind of socialist realism is seen also in Brecht and other films of the 30s and 40s, such as My Man Godfrey (1936). But at this point in the film, di Sica inevitably comes up against political reality. The shanty town is on land that is owned by someone, and that someone wants it back. Do the oppressed poor get to keep the land they occupy (which would be utopian)? Or do the landowners succeed in removing the community (which would be realistic)? De Sica opts for a third option, perhaps the easy escape. Toto acquires some magic powers via a dove given to him by his late aunt, and manages to escape on a broomstick, as do many of this associates. There is no justification for this miracle happening apart from it seeming to be a good thing. There is no other solution to the story, as far as we can see. 

Of course, a deus ex machina ending of this kind is profoundly unsettling, and makes us realise (as Douglas Sirk pointed out of plays by Euripides) how contrived and artificial is the ending. Does the ending have to be like that? Is there not a better solution – perhaps a political one? 

But by ending in this way, De Sica can have his cake and eat it. He even keeps the Catholic Church happy, since the landowners are not defeated, and the shanty town inhabitants have recourse to an other-world solution that requires only faith. So the film comes so close to political activism, and then turns away. Just as De Sica appears to have done in his subsequent career, which seems to have moved progressively away from politics and uncomfortable decisions, towards mainstream entertainment such as Matrimonio all’Italiana (1964). Wikipedia states De Sica was both a Roman Catholic and a Communist, and maintained two partners and two families for much of his life. It suggests a lack of decision-making that is apparent in Miracle in Milan. You can create a great situation, with the viewer on the edge of their seat: the honest, disposed poor, or the wealthy caricature landowner? Who is right? But then the film peters out and avoids the question.