"Il Ladro di Bambini"
                          A Film Review
                               by
                      Linda Lopez McAlister

   Forget the multiplexes and head for your local art film house
this time of year.  In Tampa this week that means wandering down to
the Tampa Theater ("The most beautiful theatre in the South") and
catching the current offering, an Italian film called "Il Ladro di
Bambini," the official translation of which is "Stolen Children" but
which, I believe, could also be rendered "Kidnapping."

   This film, written and directed by Gianni Amelio,
won an armful of awards at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.  In
its leisurely pacing and sun-drenched color pallette it reminded me
of last year's "Mediterraneo" and, although the plot and characters
are very different from that off-beat war tale, it is similar, too,
in that it is a study of developing human trust and love among
unlikely candidates for it.

   This is the story of two children, Rosetta (played by Valentina
Scalici) and Luciano (Guiseppi Ieracitano), whose childhood has truly
been stolen from them.  Their father abandoned the family some time
earlier and their mother is arrested in the film's first sequence
for having Rosetta turning tricks in their home in a
dismal apartment block on the outskirts of Milan.  Rosetta is only
eleven and has been forced to do this since she was nine.  Nine year-
old Luciano is a troubled, silent, brooding boy who, it is hinted, may
have been the one who turned his mother in.  The children are dispatched
by the authorities to a children's home in Naples.  Two members of the
Carbinieri are assigned to escort them there on the train but one of
them switches into civilian clothes and ducks off the train in
Bologna, leaving the rookie Antonio (Erico Lo Verso) to carry out
this seemingly simple mission alone.  (The Carbinieri are those
uniformed men you see in Italy guarding monuments and participating
in official ceremonies; they seem to be something like a national
police force, I gather),

   Anyway, the job turns out not to be so simple.  The children's
home in Naples refuses to take the children; Luciano has an asthma
attack and cannot get back on the train; both children are
uncommunicative and uncooperative and clearly very disturbed by
their experiences.  Antonio gets the word that he needs to proceed
to a children's home in Sicily.  Since the train to Sicily goes through
Antonio's home region of Calabria he stops off with the children
at his sister's home and restaurant so he and the children can get
cleaned up, get a good meal and get some rest before proceeding.  The
children interact with other children their own age and observe Antonio's
relationships with his own family members who demonstrate a kind of
closeness and love they've never experienced.  When one of the
guests there recognizes Rosetta as the child prostitute on the
cover of a tabloid magazine Antonio comforts her and begins to make
real contact with her and to recognize how damaged she is by her
experiences.  These are kids who have never experienced kindness
with no strings attached  from an adult. They respond warily, but as
they proceed on toward the ferry to Sicily by car and stay together
in a hotel there they begin to place their trust in Antonio. Even
the silent Luciano starts to speak.  Instead of going directly to
the Children's Home they stop off to play at the beach where the
healing and their process of bonding with Antonio contines. There
they encounter two young French women and give them a ride
to Palermo where they all go sightseeing.  A crisis occurs and they
end up in the police station where, because he hadn't gone directly
to the children's home, Antonio is accused of having kidnapped the
children and his job with the Carbinieri is put in jeopardy.

    "Il Ladro di Bambini" is an enjoyable and compelling film which
holds audience interest through the unfolding of the various
aspects of the emotions and inner lives of the three central
characters.  The child actors who play Rosetta and Luciano with
restraint and intelligence are superb.

   For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.