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Aging Italy Italian Neo-Realism Poverty

This is an Italian Neo-Realist classic, which is basically about an old man, that features non-professional actors and "real" sets. It begins with a long shot of a traffic filled street. As the credits roll, the cars clear out of the way and the street fills with a mob of angry men who are marching to protest the state of their pensions. These guys get unruly enough that several jeeps filled with policemen drive through the crowd in order to disperse them. After being shooed out of the way, several of the men hide on a side street and complain that the organizers of the protest were unable to get a permit for the demonstration.

After a few minutes, we follow Orazio and Umberto Domenico Ferrari {Carlo Battisti} as they walk down the street together and discuss their individual situations. Eventually, the two men part company; Orazio heads off to his apartment and Umberto is off to sell his spare pocket watch. Cut to a soup kitchen, where Umberto feeds Flike, his dog, under the table, and has a difficult time finding someone that's interested in buying his watch. Eventually, he does manage to sell the timepiece to a slightly shady character on the street outside the kitchen.

When he arrives back at his apartment, he finds two strangers having sex in his bed and, when he queries Miss Malantoni, the landlady {Lina Gennari}, discovers that they're friends of hers and that he'll be leaving at the end of the month. After twenty years of living in the same room and not really having any cash to spare, Umberto isn't all that fond of the idea of finding another place to live. He attempts to rectify his situation by offering to pay his back rent and sits in the kitchen and talks with Maria, the maid {Maria Pia Casilio}, while the couple in his room clears out.

Umberto confides to Maria that he's feeling a bit ill and Maria confides that she's three months pregnant, as she's chasing the bugs off of the wall with a burning newspaper. After Umberto cleans up the mess left in his room, Maria enters and they continue their discussion. As they talk she points out two soldiers that she's considering as the potential causes of her pregnancy through his bedroom window. A few minutes later the landlady threatens again to evict Umberto at the end of the month. Apparently, she's been doing a pretty good business renting out his room by the hour.

Not content with Umberto's offer of a partial payment, the landlady demands his back rent in full so, Umberto ends up going on a late night excursion to sell several very expensive books. This gets him a bit closer to his goal but doesn't come close to raising the very large sum that the woman's asking for. The next day, Umberto's illness threatens to become serious and he's forced to leave Flike with Maria in order to go to the hospital. While this is all going on, Maria begins to come to terms with her situation and to develop some understanding of just what pregnancy might actually entail.

After Umberto's spent a bit of time in the hospital, Maria brings Flike to visit and advises him that the landlady still intends to evict him. When Umberto returns home, he discovers that his room's being remodeled, Flike has turned up missing and that Maria's intended husband no longer wants anything to do with her. Umberto's search for Flike and his trip to the pound is pretty harrowing… but that's nothing compared to what's about to happen to him…

Maria's cute and a lovely actress, Umberto's not so cute but he's a pretty excellent actor and the landlady is suitably irritating. Flike even does a nice job at playing the part of the dog. Umberto D. is poignant and moving in a lovely, quiet sort of way. Despite the lack of on-screen action you will probably have a difficult time taking a break from this one. It deals wonderfully with real, human issues in a realistic way, shows us a bit of that reality that I doubt many of us has ever dealt with and manages to be touching and sensitive without the slightest trace of syrup or melodrama.

The photography and direction are very nifty. This is all put together in some nifty shades of grey with a great eye for detail and composition as well as an obvious "need" to take risks. The quirky sound-track supports that very nicely. The Criterion edition of this film comes with a fifty-five minute television documentary called "That's Life", which stars De Sica himself, that covers his career in film pretty nicely. For some reason, I have trouble believing that Vittorio De Sica had as much trouble finding producers as he claims to though… Not that I doubt him; I just find it hard to believe.