User Reviews

The Italian/Italianetz is a good use of neorealistic effects almost worthy of Zavattini and De Sica to tell the story of a Russian orphan at the present time, a boy of six who's set up for adoption by an Italian couple and then determines to sneak off and see if he can find his own mother instead. Arranging adoptions on a freelance basis, apparently, outside the chaotic social system of present-day Russia, is a lady they call Madam (Mariya Koznetsova), plump, bossy, slick, followed around by a glum factotum, Grisha (Nikolai Reutov), who's her chauffeur, toady, and sometime lover. She makes a bundle out of each successful adoption by foreigners and makes free with bribes and threats to be sure her deals go through. A product of modern Russian capitalism, the money-mad Madam is more villain than fairy godmother.

Using a photo followed up by an on-site interview at the detsky dom (children's home), Madam has arranged with an Italian couple, Roberto and Claudia, to adopt young Vanya Sonetsiv (Kolya Spridonov). But then when Vanya meets up with a remorseful drunken mom who apparently commits suicide after learning her child has been adopted and taken to Ialy, he gets the urge to investigate his own record. Everybody acts like he's such a lucky guy. But supposing he goes off with Roberto and Claudia? Mightn't he miss out on a chance to be reunited with his own mother, should she have a change of heart and want him back? Is there such a chance, though? And where is his mother? To find out, first Vanya has to learn to read – a detail the orphanage has neglected – and find a way to get a look at his file.

The detsky dom's administration is not exactly on the up-and-up. The wild looking director (Yuri Itskov) is drinking up all the funds, and to fill in the vacuum this leaves a small clique of older boys to pretty much run the place and its finances, like a rawly capitalistic petty mafia, sporting scars, tattoos and muscles and throwing around words like "cosa nostra." Led by a boy named Kolyan (Denis Moiseenko), they have their own little systems of businesses and payoffs. And this shadow regime, up to a point anyway, really seems to work. The kids' beds are clean, and the girls mend their clothes and read them fairy tales at bedtime. But it's clear there's no pathway to a better future in the life here. Vanya, whom everybody now calls "the Italian" because of the good fortune they feel he's destined for when the papers go through in a month or so, now wangles his way in with the older boys, and they help him out. Among these undergrown mafiosi is a girl named Irka (Olga Shuvalova) who they pimp out to truck drivers. It's she who teaches Vanya to read. The big boys help Vanya break into the room where the records are kept and he gets the address of the maternal home where he came from, and Irka takes Vanya to the railway station, having robbed the boys' current till and intending to run off with him. Madam immediately finds out that Vanya has disappeared and, standing to lose her payoff if she can't deliver him to the Italian couple, she sets off in hot pursuit with Grisha.

What follows is a wild chase in which Vanya shows what he's made of. Nothing, and that includes some pretty rough scrapes, can stop him from his relentless flight and quest.

The Italian never loses its authentic flavor either as it moves toward an emotionally satisfying if somewhat hasty finish Still, it's obviously in the first half of the film that we get our best look at this world and its people and the Russian orphan problem. It might even have been a better treatment of that issue if some of the earlier scenes had been allowed to play out a bit longer.

The San Francisco Chronicle's venerable Ruthe Stein called this the best "naturalistic performance by a Russian child actor since Kolya a decade ago." Spiridonov is very effective and appealing in his role, and perhaps The Italian has some links with that somewhat saccharine earlier film. But The Italian is more chastening than Kolya. A more appropriate recent comparison (and another great youth performance in Russian) is the picaresque, unpredictable Schizo (2004), directed by Guldchat Omarova with the 15-year-old Oldzhas Nusupbayev. The Italian isn't saccharine, but it's also not as grim a view of the plight of lost Russian children as Lukas Moodysson's deeply depressing 2002 film Lilja 4-Ever. See all four and decide for yourself which feels like the most convincing and cinematic story of Russian childhood. You'll have to consider whether Kravchuk undercuts or strengthens his material by turning it into a fairy tale.

It was the urge to depict a growing social problem and at the same time tell an engaging story that must have drown a documentarian like Kravchuk to this subject. He has worked well with his non-actors and his writer Andrei Romanov, and Aleksandr Burov has provided a misty, subtly colored cinematography.

This film is a sublime chronicle of the adventures of an orphan in search of his mother. Vanya (Kolya Spiridonov), supposedly is 6 years old, though Kolya is more likely 9 or 10. Nor would a 6 year old be capable of displaying the intrepid resourcefulness that Vanya demonstrates over and over again in his struggle for survival on his own terms.

Vanya is stuck in a seamy orphanage in a small Russian village; the year is 2002. Foreigners pay big money to adopt these children, and the film opens as an Italian couple arrive at the place, where they agree to adopt Vanya. Two months must pass to clear the adoption, and in this time Vanya, now nicknamed "Italienetz" - "the Italian" - by the other charges, comes to a realization that he does not wish to go to Italy with this couple, but, rather, wants to find his own mother. He has no sense that, apart from the difficulty he may encounter locating her, very likely in another city, most women who give up children to such places have no interest in ever seeing their progeny again, and many are unfit for parenting.

But Vanya is moved toward a more optimistic vision as he witnesses the recurring visits of a woman - an alcoholic prostitute - who pleads in vain for the return of her son, who is a chum of Vanya's. She is turned away because to lose the boy means a great financial sacrifice for the people running the orphanage and adoption business. (A friend of mine tells the story of her son and his wife adopting 3 Russian boys at $10,000 per child, required to be delivered in crisp new US$100 bills, and that was a decade ago.) The indomitable Vanya stubbornly holds onto his vision even after a beating by an older boy for jeopardizing the prospects of the other boys to find good homes. He learns to read, finds his file in the Headmaster's office, gleans from it the address where he lived before coming to the institution, and elopes to find his mother. With the adoption arrangers in hot pursuit, and trouble makers along the way that try to thwart him, Vanya nevertheless is in the end reunited with his mother, a connection as fulfilling as it is unlikely in such circumstances.

This happy ending seems entirely justified because it is not the arbitrary, sentimentalized product of some ham-handed screenwriter. The ingredients of Vanya's successful quest are his own grit and wiles, and the unexpected acts of kindness by others to aid him: the prostitute who teaches him to read; the older bully who comes to respect Vanya enough to help him locate his file; the old man at the way station for orphans in the city who risks his position to send Vanya on his way toward his mother's apartment; the adoption arranger who captures him but then lets him go. One might even venture to say that it is the sanctity and determination of Vanya's quest, his own state of grace, if you will, that moves others to open their hearts to him.

Kolya Spiridonov is vastly charming in the best sense. He's not cute or sweet. If anything, he's got an edge, spunk, a bit of attitude (who wouldn't, living as he has). But more than that, he's whip smart and he exudes a natural sense of confidence and self assertion in a panoply of simple, swiftly passing, apparently spontaneous gestures. His barely wrinkled nose and slight turn of the head when an old man's cigarette smoke gets too dense. His brief pickup of a phone receiver out of curiosity. His audacious pilfering of his file and equally bold move of throwing sand in the faces of older kids who want to subdue him. His quick-witted lie that a drunken man next to him on the train is his father. There is something decidedly heroic about Vanya, a willingness even to sacrifice himself in the service of pursuing his dream, as he faces each test thrown up to block his progress. It is an astonishing performance.

Virtually all the key supporting players are also first rate. For several it is their first credited screen role, but they're each one very good, a tribute to both the director and casting agent. The photography is enchanting: faint winter light and an almost milky, filmy look to everything in the exterior scenes. Intriguing views on a long train ride: farms, towns, workers, fellow travelers – all common people. Wonderful close-ups: we feel as if we have come to know several of these people – young, old and in between - at close range. This film is virtually flawless, an absolutely splendid, almost mythic tale. (In Russian) My grades: 10/10 (A+) (Seen on 02/02/07)

'Italianetz' (THE Italian) is a strong Russian film from the pen of Andrei Romanov under the direction of young artist Andrei Kravchuk - the kind of film that enlightens us about problems in Russia but also provides one of the more tender stories about a child's resilience on film.

Apparently in modern Russia there are orphanages for abandoned children which serve as repositories for adoption by needy parents throughout the world, adoptions brokered by savvy Russian sponsors who, despite the seeming heartlessness of their vocation, are doing a service in providing homes for these unwanted children. The orphanages depicted in THE Italian are not of the Charles Dickens' workhouse place types, but rather are homes run by kind people who encourage and support the children in a loving way.

Vanya Solntsev (Kolya Spiridonov) is a six-year-old orphan who has just been selected for adoption by an Italian couple visiting his orphanage. At first happy about his 'good fortune', he soon encounters a distraught mother (Dariya Lesnikova) looking for her own abandoned son and Vanya longs to return to his own birth mother. He is taught to read by a kind prostitute Irka (Olga Shuvalova) enabling him to search the orphanage files to discover the whereabouts of his birth mother. Much against the advice of his fellow orphans and those rowdy boys with whom he associates outside the orphanage, Vanya sets out to find his mother and in hot pursuit are the brokers for the adoption and the police. He hides, encounters all manner of obstacles and misfortunes on his journey, but at last he discovers his birth mother and the film ends with one of the more tender concepts imaginable.

The cinematography by Aleksandr Burov is moody and captures the feeling of peril Vanya encounters. In one of the more original musical scores for film Aleksandr Knaifel has elected to compose themes played solely on the high treble keys of the piano, on the xylophone and on bells: the feeling is one suggesting the small stature of the children, making their views the more important ones of the story. The cast is uniformly outstanding with special credit going to the warmth of the performance by young Kolya Spiridonov. Recommended for all audiences. In Russian, Italian, some English with subtitles. Grady Harp

A sadder state of affairs would be hard to imagine: the little "Italian," so flawlessly played by Kolya Spiridonov (which, ironically, sounds not unlike "spirit enough" in English), is beaten by an older, Artful Dodger-type when it's discovered that he wants to learn to read. His reason for wanting to learn to read is even sadder: he wants to find out who his real mother is, and where she lives (if she still does). He sits perched in a window, watching and waiting for her to return. Rumors abound among the children of the orphanage: kids are being adopted so that they can be "sold for spare parts." This "real Russia" is nothing if not frigid... at first glance. Upon closer examination, however, we find a deep and abiding warmth. The young girl who serves as "den mother" to the younger kids comes to "the Italian" after he has been beaten and hugs him wordlessly in what just may be one of the greatest, most beautiful moments in movie history. I highly recommend THE Italian.

You seldom see as many good acting jobs in one movie.

For me the highlight was the little blonde girl being photographed holding the stuffed animal.

"I told you not to blink," the fur-coated lady who intended to sell her hissed.

Among the appealing characters were those who appeared only briefly but helped the little boy, including the man who walked him to the bus, the man who ran the second orphanage, the workers he played cards with on the train, the lady smoking between train cars who helped him, the skinny red-haired girl who got him started on his trip, etc.

In the great continental tradition, the story is told in a rather subdued and understated fashion, without so much preachy debate and shouting match as the Anglo-Americans like to do. A lesser movie maker could have easily made this into a cheap tear-jerker. Comparing to movies such as 'Cider House Rules', this one is far more 'realistic' and down to earth. You can't help finding yourself following the boy's steps or even in his jacket with his every move. That is the power of great movies like this. The French movie 'Rosetta' comes to mind. But if that is a shiny gem, this is a field of diamond! It has a sustained power that stays with you and absorbs deeper as the minutes goes by. One other great point about this movie is that people are not black and white, humanities are abound despite the harshness and cruelty all around, perhaps with the only exception of the orphan trader herself. Then again, maybe that is what it takes to make a living like that anyway.

I gave 9 instead of 10 because I am not convinced that Vanya could have mastered all the necessary reading skill in that short period of time at his age (5-6). Understanding the stuff from a formal document is not the same as guessing some short phrases from a 'Winnie the Pooh's book. Of course he could be a true genius. But this 'exception' feels forced comparing to all other characters and plot elements since there's nothing else that requires ostensible exception in life - all could have really happened. Even the weather was made to appear 'natural' rather than following the characters mood in the plot like less movies would have done. I can't help feeling that those who asked why the driver let the boy go were brain washed by the 'black/white good vs evil' Hollywood fairy tales (nonsenses) for too long. In real world, most people do have hearts. And it shouldn't take a Russian speaker to figure this one out.

This is not a dark movie despite its plot line seems to suggest at the first glance. The true power of it lies in the beautiful warmth of humanity in many of the unlikely places, unseemly characters, and unfortunate moments. Life can be hard for some, but worthwhile if they try hard enough.

No dramatic beginning or ending here. Everything just happened. But of course, all the details are there to make it all feels so natural and smooth. That's what the masters do.

Gorgeous, both emotionally and cinematically, this exquisite (based on a true) story holds you in its thrall to its end and beyond. I found that I was moved to care about the characters, and identified with motivations that each portrayed, particularly those of the young and courageous protagonist.

A six-year-old boy, living in an orphanage in a poor section of Russia, is impassioned to find his real mother before he is sold to a couple in Italy. His urgent search, with several heart-stopping near-captures, shows how yearning and determination can change lives, at any age. Maturity and impassioned resolve are not the domain of adults only.

"The Italian" is both a love story and a thriller, and will expand your compassion in the viewing.