1942: The Children Are Watching Us

The Children Are Watching Us (1942, de Sica) 8/10


The Children Are Watching Us was Vittorio De Sica's fifth film as a director, but more importantly it was a proto-neorealist melodrama, which laid the domestic groundwork for future neorealist classics such as Bicycle Thieves and Rome, Open City. Whereas neorealism deconstructed ideas about class and poverty through a Christian-Marxist lens, The Children are Watching Us still retains the sympathetic emotion-laden cinematic language and sentimental overtones of Fascist period Italian cinema, as well as the utilization of studio sets and actors. Yet, even though the film is situated around a crime of passion, the "crime" itself is not a state offence, but a moral and spiritual one.

Filmed in 1942, but only released in 1944 after Mussolini was defeated, the story taken from neorealist screenwriter Cesare Zavanetti's script tells the tale of young Prico (Luciano de Ambrosis): a Roman infant who awakes one morning to see that his bourgeois mother Nina (Isa Pola) has left town in the night with her on-and-off lover Roberto (Adriano Rimoldi) . Prico's father Andrea (Emilio Cigoli) a prosperous businessman is driven into a state of shock. Unable to parent his own son, he attempts to briefly whisk him away to his relatives in order to figure out the boy's future.

The child becomes an unwanted gift: a parcel re-directed from door to door in an attempt to find a suitable guardian. Nobody wants to assist the father or his son, rather they openly blame the child and his mother for the situation at hand. His aunt is unwilling to take him as it infers with her work and own romantic life; his grandmother leaves the boy malnourished and scorns his childlike behaviour as it interrupts her peaceful retirement; while his cousin Paolina allows him to run away in order for her to secretly rendezvous with a local barber.


In doing so Prico witnesses an unfiltered view of the world. De Sica makes a key artistic choice by making Prico the vehicle by which the social and domestic horrors of the world are decoded. Throughout the film, De Sica allows the boy's eyes to strip away all the pure moral fantasies of marriage, childhood and domesticity as propagandized by Mussolini's regime. Through it we see Prico repeatedly pushed away to interact alone in corners, while the adults gossip; allowing him to listen to uncensored adult material about recent sexual escapades, forbidden lovers and material interests.

Yet, Prico is not as complacent or unknowing an observer as the adult world appears to believe he is. Rather, he allows the information to seep into his heart: creating his own complex internal destruction and sadness: which notably springs to life in a feverish train ride reminiscent of the tornado scene in the Wizard of Oz. In an attempt to keep the boy docile, his mother and other relatives bribe him with empty promises of gifts, trips and affection in order for him to lock away their secret sexual trysts and nightly love affairs. He sees the destruction of his family unit: the melancholy hopelessness of his father and the unabashed adultery of his mother. In an especially powerful scene, the young boy witnesses his mother being attacked by her lover; only to later on in the film view the same couple continue their love affair at a middle-class holiday resort, while Prico's father is called back to Rome on business. Prico's response is stunning as he flees the resort and attempts to board a train back to Rome to be with his father. This scene culminates with the boy almost being hit by a speeding locomotive only to be chased away in tears by an unsympathetic railway attendant.

At times the film is as shocking today is it was over forty years ago. It's power is found in the fostering and the dissolving of individual relationships between the boy and his parents. Although Prico is at times too cute and angelic; Renzo Rossellini's score is repeatedly overly sweeping; and de Sica utilizes far too many tearful close-ups, this is an immensely powerful and wonderful film. The script and the film's more understated scenes carry the picture and surprisingly give it is greatest emotional impact. The restrained melodrama of the scene in which Prico's father attempts to learn about his wife's escapades utilizes close-ups in a touching and effective manner. Yet, nothing can prepare the audience for the film's devastating finale, which one must find difficult to comprehend how audiences in 1944 received the film's finale.

The Children are Watching Us is as pertinent now as it was sixty years ago. Although it contains some intensive emotional conditioning, the film never wavers from its attempt to demonstrate the worldliness of the child. The film's title recognizes that and warns adults to maintain a level of respect and dignity within the presence of children. De Sica's film attempts to show that while children may not understand the material spoken by adults, they can comprehend the consequences, which will envelope their little universe. As with De Sica's later Bicycle Thieves, the picture promotes the importance of strong moral examples and the creation of a relationship between parent and child that is not based upon material goods and vacant promises, but on a spiritual kinship fostered by an active interest in the child's life and in the world s/he is developed within.

* The Children Are Watching Us is available through Criterion

Copyright 2006 8 ½ Cinematheque.