Best known for Italian neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica followed it up with a surprisingly hopeful fantasy comedy in Miracle in Milan. It’s very charming. It’s much more cheerful than his previous work, with fairytale-like happening and wishes coming true by angels. It’s also pretty funny to see the landlords and police fall flat in the face of magic. But underneath the town’s endearing optimism is a sadness that understands the magic’s improbability, a melancholy that playfully laughs at life’s sorrows with compassion reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin. Miracle in Milan might be happier than Bicycle Thieves, sure, but it’s no less powerful in depicting the common man.
"This satire on the cravings of rich and poor alike is also a cry of despair; De Sica's celestial visions suggest that nothing short of a miracle will save those in need."
— Richard Brody
"This beautiful and moving film may seem to some the most impressive thing de Sica has yet done; at any rate it is a further stage in the development of one of the cinema’s most outstanding artists."
— Sight & Sound Staff
Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.
After being discovered in an old woman’s cabbage patch, Totò grows up to be a happy young man, looking for work in post-war Milan. His happiness inspires his fellow homeless people to build their own shanty town in a vacant lot. However, greedy developers threaten to take over their land for profit.
Vittorio De Sica is best known for his neorealist style, so when a whole town flies away on broomsticks, the story automatically stands out in his filmography.
Oh, if only we can find the cabbage field orphan that would grant wishes to our town.
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