Miracle in Milan

It's the story of a young orphan who is forced to move to a shanty town in bomb-wrecked, post-WWII Milan.

The people who now live in those precarious tar-paper shacks are depicted as everyday people who have lost the lives they had made for themselves. Being an honest, good-natured kind of guy, the orphan soon finds himself surrounded by friends. The film is very clear on the point that the vast majority of conflicts can be settled with some commonsense and a bit of goodwill on both sides.

But there is a down side to this and the film is worldly-wise enough to point it out: the squatters represent a cross-section of society and class prejudice, selfishness and naked ambition are just as present as anywhere else. When an important oil company decides to purchase the ground beneath the shanty-town, there are those that try to get in good with the company and there are those that decide to stick together and hold out.

There are some funny, whimsical bits where magic is used against the company men and policemen who have come to evict the remaining squatters and finally, the poor fly off to a land which the film describes as a place where "Good Morning" really DOES mean "Good Morning". In other words, to a place where people are friendly and above all, sincere.

The film has a nice "Christmasey" feel and in fact, it's fairly standard Italian Christmas TV fare in much the same way as "It's A Wonderful Life" in the USA. It'd be OK to watch with kids and the grown-ups would get to watch something a little bit more interesting than the usual kiddie film.

"Miracle In Milan" demonstrates a firm belief in honest worth no matter what its external appearance may be and an unshakeable conviction in an ultimate reward for goodness, sentiments which it's hard to disagree with.

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.