Italian rings true

by RICHARD JONES

DON'T be fooled by the title of The Italian, the feature film debut for Russian director Andrei Kravchuk.

The story actually revolves around six-year-old Russian boy Vanya (Kolya Spiridinov) who escapes from the rural, Dickensian orphanage where he's lived most of his life to try and find the mother who left him there.

Vanya has to negotiate some big hurdles along the way, not least being to stay out of the clutches of adoption broker Madam (Maria Kuznetsova).

She's arranged at a considerable financial windfall for herself - for the little boy to be adopted by a loving Italian couple.

Led by Kolyan (Denis Moiseenko) the teenaged boys in the orphanage, who really run the place not the dishevelled and frequently drunk director (Yuri Itskov), dub Vanya "The Italian" because of his impending relocation.

Mindful of Kolyan's strict rules the little boy hands him the chocolates the Italian couple had given Vanya as a gift. Kolyan has a strict socialist regime of his own, which includes collecting the money the teenage girls make from prostituting themselves to the truckies.

But Kolyan and his associates do not fritter the money away. It's used to buy shoes for the younger children.

Vanya's worries really start when a woman comes to the orphanage looking for her son. He was the last boy sent to Italy by Madam and the director and Vanya wonders whether his own mother will come looking if he departs for warmer climes.

And so his odyssey begins, with Madam and her driver-cum security guard on the chase. After he manages to evade the pursuing couple, at least temporarily during a train ride, Vanya has his special jacket stolen by two older, homeless boys and sees scenes of desperation with urban streets full of beggars, drunks and drug addicts.

Fortunately Vanya had learned to read during his last days at the orphanage so he can find his way about, albeit with the help of some very charitable adults.

Madam and the driver are not about to give the chase up easily, though, and Vanya has to marshall all his resources to stay out of their clutches.

Kravchuk's film exposes a worrying real-life practice in 21st century Russia - the buying and selling of abandoned children to rich foreign couples.

Nevertheless Kolya Spiridinov is spell-binding as Vanya and his performance rates as the finest I've seen from a child actor during the past decade.

31 July 2007

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