Luigi Comencini
La finestra sul Luna Park

You might remember Luigi Comencini for the fabulous television series of Pinocchio which, in my opinion, remains to this day the best adaptation of Collodi's book ever made, despite some forgivable Disney-like concessions. Released in April 1972, the series showcased the director's ability to lead a child actor and create a story where the audience's empathy towards him dominated. Well, it wasn't the first time this happened: in 1957, he directed a film, 'La finestra sul luna park', a late-neorealist gem today possibly forgotten due to the presence of almost unknown actors except for Gastone Renzelli in the role of father Aldo, remembered in Visconti's masterpiece 'Bellissima', where he also played the part of the father, inexplicably forgotten by many.

Late-neorealist isn't a randomly chosen adjective: it's inevitable to trace the conflictual relationship between Mario, the child protagonist, and his father striving to earn the child's affection, echoes of De Sica's films, from the masterpiece 'Ladri di biciclette' reaching back to 'I bambini ci guardano'. In fact, Comencini constructs a film equipped with all the hallmarks (from the plot to the setting to even the social class of the protagonists) to be perfectly classified in the path traced by our luminary of Neorealism, including the presence during the screenplay phase of Suso Cecchi D'Amico's pen. In short, the only distinguishing element might seem to be the year of setting: it's 1957 and despite the configured situation of poverty for the two protagonists, signs of prosperity loom on the horizon: while in Ladri di biciclette, the worker father went crazy throughout the city searching for the means necessary to complete a humble task meant to earn a hot meal at the end of the day, our Mario's father has a much better, more lucrative job at hand. The only sacrifice? He has to emigrate to Africa, leaving his wife and little boy alone. And it is precisely on this conflict that the dramatic heart of the film unfolds: what is better for the loved ones in the family, to have more comforts (even that "luxury" of those years, television, is mentioned) at the cost of affection scarcity? This dilemma becomes even weightier when due to a road accident, the female presence is missing, and Mario risks being left alone in the world and being locked up in a boarding school.

But Comencini’s eyes are benevolent towards his cinematic offspring: and so thanks to the escape of a long flashback at the moment of final resolution, he shows us the dormant suffering caused by the solitude that mother and child had experienced during the husband's absence, how Mario himself never could have known his father, how serene days at the seaside in the company of Mario's grandparents' handyman Righetto, here acting as a putative parent and husband, held far more value than material goods and the brief lines of letters sent from afar. In short, the movie's message and moral are clear, and the father manages to open his eyes just in time, the night before his hypothetical departure. He will stay along with his son, while the always reliable and honest Righetto, who never dared to tarnish that good family name despite the evident affection that developed between them, decides to step aside, allowing child and parent to strengthen their bond.

And it is right here that the second difference with De Sica's films emerges, he always preferred a much more pessimistic ending and interpretation: the father in Ladri fails to find the bicycle and narrowly escapes prison purely out of mercy, the child from 'I bambini ci guardano' goes through the definitive abandonment of his mother and the father's suicide and is put in a boarding school; here, of course, nothing is known about the future which appears uncertain (the father, after all, gives up a lucrative job opportunity for a more precarious and less profitable "living day to day" through manual jobs and other chores and the help of the conservative grandparents, opposed until shortly before, becomes essential), but it no longer matters, because they are together. The last shot of the two on a fairground ride is emblematic, the triumph of an affection destined to grow and, in view of future adversities, a source from which to draw strength and nourishment.