Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan (1951)—based on the novel Totò il buono by longtime De Sica collaborator Cesare Zavattini, who also penned the screenplay—appeared between the director’s neorealist classics Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952) and is quite different.
In the opening scene, elderly Lolotta (Emma Gramatica) discovers a crying baby in her garden cabbage patch. Within 10 minutes of screen time, the boy experiences a joyful upbringing, Lolotta dies, and the lad is sent to an orphanage, only to emerge seconds later as a young man, who decidedly looks on the bright side of life.
Totò (Francesco Golisano) immediately begins to greet strangers on the streets with a heartfelt “good morning,” but is quickly rebuffed by a grouchy pedestrian. After an encounter with a thief, Totò is offered a place to stay overnight. A dissolve opens up on a bleak vista of small hovels from which emerge a number of cold homeless men—including the thief and Totò.
In the wondrous following scene, the men race for a literal spotlight in the sun, stamping madly while turning their smiling faces upwards. A subsequent windstorm will level the makeshift camp but under the happy guidance of natural leader Totò, a vibrant shantytown that attracts new families will arise in its place on the outskirts of metropolitan Milan.
Trouble in (low-rent) paradise comes when oil springs from the ground and two-faced wealthy capitalist Mr. Mobbi (Guglielmo Barnabò) swoops in to buy the land and order the eviction of the current tenants.
Up to this point, Miracle in Milan has been a delightful little fable, with the benevolent Chaplinesque Totò’s infectious can-do brio inspiring the financially downtrodden yet overall happy campers. The threatened battle between rich and poor initially appears to be a no-contest situation…until a ghostly angelic Lolotta descends from the heavens and gives Totò a dove that grants wishes.
Before long, the residents are sporting fur coats and the authorities are being driven back by various means—most notably after an attack using smoke bombs, as Totò and his cohorts successfully “blow” the smoke back towards their antagonists. As the conflict continues, Miracle in Milan evolves into full-blown fantasy (Gabriel García Márquez cited the film as a deep influence on his use of magical realism) before reaching its somewhat enigmatic conclusion.
Miracle in Milan was initially criticized by critics on both the left (too tame in its implied anticapitalism) and the right (too pointed in its implied anticapitalism) while leaving everyone confused about De Sica’s neorealism. Today, the film can be appreciated for what it really is: a big-hearted slice of goodness appealing to the better angels of our nature.
Presented with a luminous 4K digital transfer, extras include a new interview with neorealism expert and film scholar David Forgacs, an audio interview from the late 1960s in which De Sica looks back on his career, interviews with actor Brunella Bovo and Manuel De Sica (the director’s son), a 2019 documentary on screenwriter Zavattini, and a booklet with an essay by film critic Christina Newland and a 1940 treatment of Totò il buono.
Serving up a wonderful (despite being seemingly contradictory) mix of neorealism and magical realism, this social critique fantasy—a Grand Prix winner at Cannes—is highly recommended for classic film collections public libraries and film studies students.