I'M NOT SCARED (lo nonho paura)
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B+
Miramax Films
Directed by: Gabriele Salvatores
Written by: Niccolo Ammaniti, Francesca Marciano
Cast: Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Dino Abbrescia, Giorgio Careccia,
Giuseppe Cristiano, Mattia Di Pierro, Diego Abatantuono
Screened at: Dolby, NYC, 2/5/04
Kidnapping stories usually are front-page news, as, for
example, the example in February of this year of the capture of
a guy who allegedly sped away with an eleven-year-old girl and
was captured via a surprisingly good image on videotape. In a
country like ours or 280 million people, it's a wonder that this
type of crime, carried out usually for money from rich parents,
does not occur more often.
Gabriele Salvatores, who directed "I'm Not Scared," or "lo
nonho paura" in the original Italian, was obviously fascinated by
Niccolo Ammaniti and Francesca Marciano's screenplay,
because unlike most gangster pics, this one is told strictly from
the point of view of a ten-year-old boy, on summer vacation
from the fifth grade in his southern Italian school. Unlike kids in
the U.S. who often say that they were bored for two months
"nuttin' ta do," the youngsters in "I'm Not Scared" are having a
ball at their impressionable age, which for those of us in loving
homes make up the best times of our lives, full of mystery and
excitement and free-spirited play. The freedom that these kids
enjoy is better than that of children from big cities and suburbs,
as they ride their bikes from the smallest of towns deep into the
corn-splashed fields that are virtually uninhabited.
During summer of 1978, young Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano)
is racing about with his sister and a handful of pals (which
include the obligatory bully) when he breaks away from the
gang to look for the eyeglasses lost by his sister. Locating
them, he observes a metal cover which, when lifted, gives him a
horrible view: a pair of legs extend beyond a blanket belonging,
presumably to a dead body, but when he closes the lid and
opens it once again, the legs disappear. When they appear
once again, they are attached to a kid who,in the film's scariest
second or two, looks like a scarecrow. Are we in for a horror
thriller? Not this time, or not exactly.
The discovered boy, Filippo (Mattia De Pierro) turns out to be
a kidnap victim who cannot open his eyes and, when coaxed to
leave the gangsters' hideout is blinded by the sun, making those
of us who took Philosophy 101 to think of Plato's allegory of the
cave (about people chained in a cave able to see only their
reflections on the wall cast by a fire and who misinterpret this as
reality).
Giuseppe Cristiano, a handsome, bright and curious lad,
appears in virtually every scene and is a splendid find for
director Salvatores whose 1991 feature "Mediterraneo" about
stranded Italian soldiers living la dolce vita on a Greek island
during World War II won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language
entry. In a sense, "I'm Not Scared" follows the template: for
the stranded soldiers, substitute the two boys who, separated by
a couple of miles of corn field, are without adult supervision and
try to come to terms with the predicament. They seem unable to
take decisive action to liberate themselves from (if you will) the
Platonic cave. Never mind that the victim willingly returns to his
captives' chambers where he had been chained for days or
weeks! The would-be savior, limited by the mentality of a ten-
year-old, appears to believe it's perfectly acceptable to let the
kid stay there as long as he, Michele, can go home and sneak
bread and meat to the hungry and thirsty Filippo.
It's difficult to believe that Michele's folks, the obviously loving
dad Pino (Dino Abbrescia) who arm-wrestles his son with the
affectionate gave of mother Anna (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), could
be so inept as kidnappers that they argue loudly with a Brazilian
partner in crime, Sergio (Diego Abatantuono) and a couple of
other scummy thugs who, for all we know, comprise a large
percentage of the village population. But what exactly to these
guys want? They watch the victim's mother on TV, but there
is no evidence that they demanded ransom.
With a spot-on selection of music, particularly imitative of
Vivaldi's baroque style and some gorgeous summer
photography in rural Italy, "I'm Not Scared" could be a dark fairy
tale (aren't they all?) but the performances of the two youthful
leads are wonderfully credible, a riveting display of real-life play
that turns dangerous.
Not Rated. 102 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at
Harveycritic@cs.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37504 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1269265 X-RT-TitleID: 1131680 X-RT-SourceID: 570 X-RT-AuthorID: 1123 X-RT-RatingText: B+
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