Umberto D. [1952]

 Umberto D. – Italian Neorealist movement’s final definitive film and Vittorio De Sica’s personal favourite – alternated between extreme desolation and sentimentalist tendencies. The former led to it being attacked by the then conservative government for demeaning Italy’s image abroad, and was rejected by domestic viewers who wanted to ignore their plights for rosier images. The latter, conversely, has slightly diluted the film’s standing today in some quarters. To the remarkable credit of De Sica and his frequent collaborator, the great screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, it continues to remain a revered classic for its eloquent invocation of their conception of “collective actions” – viz. how “no story is ever truly individual” – as the primary lens for neorealism. Tellingly, therefore, it begins with a street demonstration – strikingly shot by G. R. Aldo as if straight out of a newsreel – of retired elderly men, demanding a raise in their pensions. As their protest gets broken with utter apathy by the cops, Umberto Domenico Ferrari (septuagenarian Carlo Battisti in his first and only role), emerges from the crowd of bitter, hapless men as one out of many. A former civil servant having to live a life of penury and indignity on account of his measly pension and mounting debts, he’s on the verge of being evicted from his accommodation by his cold-hearted landlady for overdue rent. Umberto is profoundly attached to his dog Flike, and makes a rare human connect with a sympathetic maid (Maria-Pia Casilio), in a world that has discarded compassion, empathy and human decency as meaningless liabilities. Despite the occasional propensity for titillating the tear-buds, the film tackled its bleak themes – societal indifference, loneliness, suicidal impulses – with equanimity, immediacy, irony and deep humanism.

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Genre: Drama/Urban Drama

Language: Italian

Country: Italy