A Culpa dos Pais

This Italian melodrama concerns the effects on 4-year-old Prico (Luciano De Ambrosis) of his parents' dissolving marriage. His mother (Isa Pola) is having an affair, and is planning on abandoning the family, while Prico's father (Emilio Cigoli) seems powerless to fix the situation. Even when the mother's guilt from leaving her son becomes too much and a reconciliation is attempted, old passions rise up, all before the watchful eyes of young Prico.

On paper this sounds like something I'd detest, an overheated melodrama with a kid as the central focus. However, this is not the product of the American production code in which a little kid is just thrown into the proceedings to appease the censors. Instead, director De Sica manages to handle the story with finesse and style, and it ended up being one of the best movies that I've seen in a while. Young De Ambrosis is very good as the wide-eyed little boy, imbuing the proper sadness when needed. The supporting performances are all good, and much of their inner lives and motivations are left up to the viewer to figure out, as things are seen from the child's point of view.

The camerawork is also noteworthy, with a few striking scenes, such as the camera moving lithely through a crowded hotel dining room, or a series of dramatic close-ups late in the film. The powerful ending is moving and memorable.

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.

The story relates the disintegrating marriage of a bourgeois couple, indicated through their modern, spacious apartment and the housekeeper they employ. This distinguishes the film from the better known Italian neo realist works which typically take place against a backdrop of poverty and deprivation. The story is seen through the eyes of their young son, Prico.

Far more obscure than de Sica's other work, this is still nonetheless a classic because it endures, the story could take place just as easily today, with a few minor adjustments of clothing and details.

I don t agree this film is sentimental, it manages to stay just the right side of mawkishness. However, it still tugs at your heart strings, the child is just superb. The sign of a genius director that De Sica was able to manage the logistics of the crew, the equipment and coax this sort of performance out of a four year old.

This film put me in mind of Brief Encounter and it would be interesting to watch the two alongside. Both deal with infidelity and both are fantastically moving films.

The Criterion DVD is an excellent transfer. There are a couple of interviews on the disc and the accompanying sleeve notes are really informative.

Highly recommended.

An unbelievably great film made a year before Visconti's "Ossessione" which is often wrongly considered the first official neo-realist film. It's a bit melodramatic in parts but filled with scene after scene of immortal, poignant truths not only about the way a child sees adults but the way everyone sees everyone else in reality and in the 'real world' where purity of soul and honesty matters and is always heroic, where as Pascal wrote, man's greatness is so obvious it can even be deduced from his wretchedness. This extremely fleeting 'real world' is never fixed but nevertheless always there in some essence or another waiting to be discovered and 'captured' underneath a thousand and one veils. Neo-realism provided techniques for snaring those elusive essences better. And these techniques have endured to this day, where the sons of the sons of neo-realist films from all around the world are instantly recognized as valuable and given acclaim (most recently a slew of impressive films from Iranian directors). Even if De Sica hadn't gone on to make "Shoeshine," "Bicycle Thief," and "Umberto D" he already had enough in this one little film to earn respect as one of the supreme artists of the 20th century.

THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US might be our favorite De Sica film and one of our favorite Italian films of all time. It portrays with delicate sympathy the suffering of a child whose parents are separated because of the mother's love affair with another man. While the husband and wife are perfectly portrayed, by Emilio Cigoli and Isa Pola, the film belongs to little Luciano De Ambrosis as the five-year-old Prico'. His performance, which runs the gamut of joy, anguish, and sickly fear, staggers us. But of course it was director De Sica who was to work miracles later with the child actors of SHOE SHINE and THE BICYCLE THIEF. The conclusion to this heartbreaking film is no less unforgettable than those of De Sica's better-known masterpieces. It is one of the most indispensable of movies from Italy's fascist era. And it is shamefully unknown today.