Miracle in Milan

Miracle in Milan (Italian: Miracolo a Milano) is a 1951 Italian fantasy comedy film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The screenplay was co-written by Cesare Zavattini and De Sica, based on Zavattini's 1943 novel Totò il Buono. Told as a neo-realist fable, the film depicts the lives of a poverty-stricken group in post-WWII Milan, Italy, led by Totò, a kind and cheerful orphan. The film stars Francesco Golisano as Totò, alongside an ensemble cast that includes Emma Gramatica, Paolo Stoppa, Guglielmo Barnabò, and Brunella Bovo.

In 2008, Miracle in Milan was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's list of 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."

Lolotta, a kind old woman, discovers a baby in her cabbage patch and adopts the boy, who she names Totò. She teaches him things like math, but also instills him with joy and wonder, and they live together happily until he is 11, when Lolotta dies. Totò is sent to an orphanage, where he stays until reaching adulthood. Cast out alone into the cold Milanese winter, Totò, who has not lost his openhearted optimism, winds up settling in a shantytown on the outskirts of the city.

Totò's presence initiates a transformation in the shantytown, and soon it begins to become a real community, with the inhabitants working together to build sturdier and more elaborate structures along named streets surrounding a central square. New arrivals are welcomed, and the community grows. One day, Brambi and Mobbi, two wealthy businessmen, come to look at the plot of land on which the squatters are living, as Mobbi is considering purchasing it from Brambi. Totò invites them to warm their hands at a small fire, and an uncomfortable Mobbi, who does not like Brambi's price for the land anyway, makes a speech saying the squatters should not have to move, and that they are all brothers. The squatters cheer Mobbi as he and Brambi beat a hasty retreat.

During a celebration, as a hole is being dug for a maypole, oil is discovered beneath the shantytown, though the residents initially mistake the clear liquid for water. Rappi, a scheming resident who does not get along with his neighbors, alerts Mobbi in exchange for a reward, and Mobbi promptly purchases the land and sends one of his employees to tell the squatters to leave. The residents drive the man away, and Totò brings the leaders of the settlement to talk with Mobbi, as he believes the magnate's earlier speech was sincere.

While he delays the leadership of the shantytown in his office, Mobbi sends his personal police force to begin the evictions, and Totò and his comrades return to discover their neighbors defeated. They lead a charge that pushes back the officers, but then Mobbi arrives with more forces, and the residents are driven back against the railroad tracks by smoke bombs. Totò climbs the maypole and waves his handkerchief as a white flag, but, just then, the ghostly spirit of Lolotta comes down from the sky and gives him a magical dove, saying it will allow him to do whatever he wants, before she flies off, chased by two angels.

Using the dove, Totò drives away Mobbi and his troops. His neighbors have noticed the miraculous occurrences, however, and they start to ask him for things. Some requests are practical, and many are not, but he does not discriminate, and spends the next several hours granting as many wishes as he can.

With difficulty, Totò eventually slips away to talk with Edvige, a young woman with whom he is smitten. She is initially frightened of him, but he denies there is anything magical or holy about him, and she gradually relaxes. All she can think to ask for is a new pair of shoes, but, after they kiss, Totò offers to give Edvige the Sun. As they watch it rise (after having set not long before), the angels take back the dove.