Shoeshine 4K 1946 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Shoe-shine boys Pasquale and Filippucci dream of saving up money to buy their own horse. For a promised reward, they agree to bring some contraband to a fortune-teller and end up in a juvenile prison.

Review 4K Movie

This film was studied by the author of the review over two evenings. Without delving too deeply into the specifics of the cinematography and only briefly mentioning the positive impression left by the work of Alessandro Cicognini, the composer who avoided a dramatization that would have been completely useless in the conditions of Italy in 1946, he welcomed the well-deserved award two years later with a cup of chicory drink (and avoiding irony about the fact that shoe shiners in Italy in those years were most often employed by all sorts of Oscar-winning Joe Leiters), the author directly addresses what could be considered speculation, but which he does not consider himself entitled to keep silent about.

So, it is important to understand that ‘incorrect pronunciation’ is directly related to misinterpretation.

Take Pasquale: he was fooled by creating the appearance (and audibility) that Giuseppe, who temporarily took on the appearance of sacks with unknown contents, was suffering because of certain knowledge that Pasquale was by no means fully entitled to possess. Needless to say, Giuseppe, who was supposedly beaten, remained silent, while Giuseppe, who was actually beaten in the alternative version, or Giuseppe the fugitive, blurted it out later in the script. There is a lot in common between running and talking—often those who run prefer to remain silent for the rest of the time, while those who talk (frequent heroes of television news) prefer not to use public transport, among other things.

Betrayal is always mutual—isn't that thesis too hasty?

No, if we proceed from the following position: mutual betrayal affirms for both sides what is vital for them, what they directly interact with, what is true.

In other words, betrayal is necessary for the tears in the eyes of the persecutors, for the understanding that arises in them at the sight of the accomplished (unwanted, infantile) retribution that there is a flip side to justice, often called “friendship.”

Take Giuseppe: his thirst for revenge pushes him to commit a crime against camaraderie (after all, the desire to possess a horse/slave and work together makes the boys more like colleagues, co-workers, comrades-in-arms, ready to help each other, to perform feats, but equally free to renounce each other in the event of a threat to their reputation or personal dignity). However, an attentive viewer discovers that this feeling cannot be fully called “resentment,” as it lacks depth, does not deny the nature of things, does not touch on the character of little Filippucci, and has only a logical consequence—in the form of a conclusion made on the advice of a lawyer, freeing the older brother from responsibility, leading to the death of the younger brother and (so be it) Pasquale's ‘Cainism’. The stone serves as a reliable support for the agreement concluded between (only now) friends, and the esteemed Sir Fraser will not allow anyone to lie.

Thus, the intervention of jurisprudence as a way of freeing oneself from (at first glance, non-existent) responsibility leads to (a) a fatal outcome and (b) the aggravation of the circumstances of the future life of the one who was not included in the plan of liberation. In other words, legal proceedings are based not on the principle of justice, but on temporary preference and supported visibility in the punishable and punishing, that it is not their social roles that are irreplaceable, but the performers, just as the fall of an apple on a snail's shell can instill in the latter the law of universal gravitation (which, of course, will hardly find understanding among other snails who have never been to foreign gardens and who firmly believe in the fundamental nature of private property).

This is an unconditional film. It is worth watching without judging its content, but it does not (as the mirror in the bathroom suggests) turn those who try to find a topic for discussion in it into a laughing stock.