I'm Not Scared

Set in Southern Italy, 1978, I'm Not Scared was marketed to American movie goers as a thriller. It is anything but. However, I can imagine why Miramax felt they had to do so as this is more of a typical Italian (or foreign) art house film. I saw a similar story in Malena a few years ago although it was set in a different time and place. Fellini and others have done this as well. Heck - for an American version, watch Blue Velvet.

The movie is rife with cliches (some of which you will see in the clips) and even more so, saddled with an unbelievable main character. The story centers around a 10 year old boy discovering a deep secret in his small poor town. The adults in the town are collaborating on a famous kidnapping and another little boy is being held captive in a storm cellar beneath an old abandoned house. If the boy tries to save the kidnap victim, his parents will surely go to jail and there is no visible support system for him and his sister is this occurs. If he does nothing, the boy will either die or be returned to his own parents and his father may become richer. In normal circumstances, I found it hard to believe that this 10 year old would be able to make this decision. A more believable scenario is that he would withdraw from the world as he seems to almost do in several scenes where he makes up stories underneath his bedsheets to explain the adult's inexplicable behaviour. About the only explanation is that the movie shows multiple times where the boy, driven by who knows what, makes a decision to help those who are weaker. Maybe the director just believes in the innate goodness of some people. The movie hints that his mother and father are 'good' as in they mean well but intentions don't mask the evil of their conspiracy.

Despite these problems, the photography and music combine to make for some stunning scenes which I have clipped below.

Clip 1: Movie opening (~19 Mb)
A string quartet plays a moving theme as children race through lush wheat fields. A young boy turns to take care of his sister and in doing so is in danger of losing the race for which there are (as we find out later) consequences. A pattern is set for the boy that perhaps will explain his later actions -- that is, always looking out for those that are weaker. Several movie cliches such as dead animals and the crow presage death and misfortune.

Clip 2: Moment of Discovery (~29 mb)
Again we see the boy but now he is riding a bike alone through roads that run through the same wheatfields. Again, he comes across a dead animal, in this case a snake along the road. As he approaches the abandoned farmhouse and the storm cellar where he discovered something strange the previous day, the music stops and boy approaches the hole with trepidation. We then get the first (and only) genuine scare of the film and one jarring screen image as we see a ghostly boy at the bottom of the hole. The boy on the bike rides away in fear and the same music that opened the film accompanies his fleeing. The final moment of the clip shows him flying through the air with no support underneath as his discovery has surely upended his world.

Fine print: Movies are in MPEG1 format and should be readable by Quicktime or RealPlayer. If you have problems let me know by leaving a comment. These links are valid for seven days from now (that is they will no longer work after 26 December). These clips and this posting is covered under Fair Use law.

Links:

IMDB.com Page
Official Site