Shoeshine (1946) - Italian

Italian director Vittorio De Sica explores the disintegration of a friendship between two young boys in a Italian jail for youth. Giuseppe and Pasquale are imprisoned after being falsely accused of stealing from a fortune teller while selling her American blankets. Their case isn't helped any by their purchase of an expensive horse, which they had been saving up to buy for quite some time. Giuseppe bunks with several older boys while Pasquale is cooped up with a younger crowd. It is interesting to see the peer influence on each of their environments, especially after Pasquale is fooled into revealing the truth about who was behind the robbery.

As a part of the loose push for the Italian Neorealist movement, Shoeshine uses shooting on location and the streets of a war torn Italy to express woes of the mundane through a documentary like setting. The only light that creeps in through the prison is through bars there are many instances of exterior light forming patterns around the children's cells. The fresh air and freedom of the exterior can be likened to the other presences of light. For instance, an escape is played out during the projection of news reels and a comedy set on the streets of Italy. All of these bright projected lights are constant reminders of the white horse that was purchased by the boys at the beginning of the film. It is a shadow of their boyhood attempts to have excitement and no obligations. The horse is the last physical remnant of their friendship that exists outside the prison walls.

De Sica can be praised for his display of the troubles and lives of the Italian worker. The shoeshine boys worked for low wages and mostly for the visiting American forces who still lingered in the streets of Italy. Italian Neorealism is praised for its revelation of the drama in the motions and movements of the everyday. The usual becomes ripe with emotion and contrite images of post-war Italian society. Other films of De Sica in this same vein are The Bicycle Thief (1948), Miracle In Milan (1951), and Umberto D. (1952).