The Children Are Watching Us (1944)

Recommended

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: I bambini ci guardano

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Writers: Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Margherita Maglione, Cesare Giulio Viola, Cesare Zavattini

Cinematographers: Giuseppe Caracciolo, Romolo Garroni

Composer: Renzo Rossellini

Cast: Luciano De Ambrosis, Emilio Cigoli, Isa Pola, Adriano Rimoldi, Giovanna Cigoli

De Sica’s atypical bourgeois melodrama – a child’s-eye view of a messy marital break-up, highlighting the devastating effects that the selfish behaviour of adults can have upon their offspring – is an uneven film that is sometimes as obvious as its rather unimaginative title, but De Ambrosis’s outstanding juvenile performance and some nice visual flourishes from De Sica ensure that this wartime production is never anything less than entertaining and often quite moving. Iain.Stott