Academy Award-winning director Gabriele Salvatores (“Mediterraneo”) makes powerful use of chiaroscuro, taut pacing and some damn fine performances to enchant and unhinge us in this gorgeous, disturbing reflection on the loss of innocence. Though based on the novel by Niccolo Ammaniti, “I’m Not Scared” has the look and feel of something from the Stephen King oeuvre. Think “Stand by Me” meets “Pet Sematary,” with subtitles. From the outset, director of photography Italo Petriccione uses the hypnotic beauty of Basilicata and Puglia, two of the southernmost regions of Italy, to lull us into reverie. But a shocking discovery by a young boy shatters all illusions of tranquility, and conjures childhood fears we only hoped we’d left behind.
It’s the late 1970s and Michele (gifted newcomer Giuseppe Cristiano) is an inquisitive 10-year-old who enjoys reading comics and playing with his ragtag friends in the lush fields surrounding his tiny Sicilian village. One day while wandering alone near an abandoned house, he discovers a half-blind boy named Filippo (Mattia Di Pierro) imprisoned in a hole in the ground beneath a piece of corrugated tin. At first Michele treats Filippo like a wounded animal he’s charged with nursing back to health. But compassion soon leads to friendship, and Michele finds himself questioning how and why his secret companion is chained up in that hole. Tension mounts as he begins to draw a correlation between Filippo’s plight and the increasingly peculiar behavior of his father and the other people of the village. When a television news report identifies Filippo as the kidnapped child of a wealthy Milanese woman, Michele realizes the awful truth about the adults he once trusted implicitly … and must figure out a way to save Filippo and himself. (Rated R for disturbing images and language. Running time: 108 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 23, 2004. Read the original PDF.