A four-year old boy, Pricò, becomes the subject of emotional folly by his fluctuant parents and inattentive relatives.
Peter Brunette notes, "The Children Are Watching Us marks the first full blossoming of one of the most fruitful collaborations in world cinema history. The brilliant pairing of legendary Italian actor and hitherto commercial director Vittorio DeSica with Cesare Zavattini, the talented screenwriter who was to become the chief theorist of the neorealist movement that flourished in Italy right after World War II, created a synergy of magnificent proportions, which allowed each man to transcend his own individual limitations." So, Brunette might be a little flowery with his prose, but he is spot on. Regardless of whatever internal qualities this film has, good or bad, it is historically significant because of its place at the beginning of DeSica's career. This may be his least-known film, or at least one of the lesser known, but without it there would never have been "Bicycle Thieves", "Umberto D", or much of anything else. This really is the birth of the neo-realist movement that defined Italy for a generation.
