Umberto D, produced in Italy in 1952, is often cited as the last film produced in the post-war Italian neo-realist style. Shot on a very small scale, with a tiny rostrum of mostly unnamed characters (man in hospital, landlady, sister, voice of light), it’s the sad but ever-hopeful story of a destitute retiree whose only claim in this world is his dog, Flick.
Director Vittoria de Sica (who directed The Bicycle Thief) has crafted something akin to a “found film” in that the actors are almost exclusively amateurs, the sets whatever was available on the streets of Roma, with large portions of the story dedicated to simply observing the daily routines of the characters who inhabit this film.
This powerful narrative has universal application, regardless of period or cultural setting. The loneliness of the aged and their marginalisation in society is still a problem in affluent industrial countries, regardless of social welfare and political paternalism. Perhaps this is a mechanism of Nature, although the film certainly seems to place the blame for Umberto’s plight on the Italian government.
Umberto is a man who is determined to lead the last few years of his life with dignity, but who is assailed by a society that, if not hostile, is at best, uncaring. While Umberto scrambles to find a way to avoid being evicted from his one-room suite, we observe how difficult it is for a man in such a trying situation to retain dignity and hope.
For long stretches of the film we simply observe people walking down streets, playing in parks, working in the kitchen, and witness how they sometimes can be ground down by life. Umberto is no exception, as everything in his life has been, as we might say in modern parlance, “downsized”. He appears to have neither friends nor family, neither work nor money, and soon he will no longer have a home. Consequently, it makes perverse sense that even his name is downsized; he is no longer Umberto Domenico Ferrari, but simply Umberto D.
There are a number of notable scenes, including the scene at the Animal Pound when Umberto recovers Flick and saves the hapless mongrel from certain death, and the stunning attempted suicide at the climax. In a final attempt at solving his dilemma, Umberto tries to give Flick away to a little girl who is playing in the park but her young, vital parents intervene, refusing the offer. Umberto tries to walk away, crosses a bridge; but Flick follows, finds him by the tracks, jumps into his arms. The train whistle howls, the express blows past as man and dog are bisected in shadow and light, as if framed in transition between this world and the next. It’s a brilliantly conceived and executed piece of film, one of the greatest sequences ever, anywhere.
The dog escapes and Umberto totters back over the footbridge into the park where he finds Flick hiding behind a tree, suspicious of his master’s intentions. But Umberto lures the dog out with a familiar routine and the film ends with the man and his dog gambolling into the distance as if happily reconciled to each other and their very uncertain fate.
Umberto D courageously and magnificently champions the life of an apparently insignificant man in a difficult time.
Source: www.culturecourt.com