The Italian

This film deals with the commercialisation of the fostering of orphans in contemporary Russia. The film is set in Siberian region, and some scenes were filmed in Varenchesk. The structure of the film is fairly traditional, following the adventures of a six-year old boy who, inspired by the reappearence of a boy’s mother at the orphanage where he lives and, faced with the imminent possibility of being fostered, resolves to find his own mother.

In the life of the particular orphanage where most of the action takes place, there is a dichotomy between the activities of the children and the adults. Given the institution's ineffectual director, the children have developed their own methods and norms to regulate their society. One of the orphans acts as the regulator-in-chief and it is his role to mete out punishment whenever these norms are transgressed, one of which is the understanding that orphans with the opportunity to be adopted should go along with it regardless of their own feelings, because these adoptions result in money for the orphanage some of which trickles down to the children. With his own adoption apparently on the cards, the young boy's wish to find his mother meets opposition from the adult and junior “societies” both.

The latter part of his search for his mother plays as a lively and suspenseful chase, and documents the boys narrow escapes from the clutches of the wealthy and uncouth Cruella DeVille-type, who apparently brokers the adoptions. Such scenes, particularly when we are shown the pursuers in their unguarded moments, are reminiscent of Gogol's Government Inspector. See in particular the farcical, albeit brief, scenes in the rural police station, where the interaction of the officious orphanage managers, sleepy policemen and cunning children is well played. Despite the lighter moments, the film's contextual material is very troubling, as is the fact that such a system perhaps might exist in Russia today. There is a clear suggestion that the abandonment of babies to the care of orphanages is a significant social trend in contemporary Russia, whence the motivation for this film in the mind of the filmmakers.

The music is one of the most striking features of this film, and contributes greatly to the prevailing mood. At times the ambient noise of what is happening onscreen is muted and the music is the only sound heard by the audience while the action takes place onscreen. The music is eerie, ethereal, with much discordant chiming, and the intention could be to suggest the unpleasantness of the situation that the orphans find themselves in. The music is so striking because it is not the kind that is an immediately obvious choice of accompaniment to what happens on the screen. At one point, What initially we think is the ethereal soundtrack turns out to be the sound of a character’s mobile phone ringtone. The centrality of the music's role in the filmmakers' vision is put beyond question in the final scenes when the sense of conclusion is reflected in the fact that the twinkling notes of the tune being played resolve from their hitherto characteristic spooky dischordancy, to a sweetly harmonic and melodic, and final, chord progression.

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