A young boy accidentally discovers a deep hole in the ground, where another boy is kept prisoner.A young boy accidentally discovers a deep hole in the ground, where another boy is kept prisoner.A young boy accidentally discovers a deep hole in the ground, where another boy is kept prisoner.
- Awards
- 14 wins & 18 nominations
Susi Sánchez
- Madre Filippo
- (as Susy Sánchez)
Emilio Fede
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAs the film is mainly told from a child's point of view, director Gabriele Salvatores instructed his director of photography Italo Petriccione to shoot most of the film at a child's height.
- GoofsWhen Michele's mother cleans blood from between his nose and lips, more blood is visible from his lips down onto his chin, but with the next shot, the blood on his chin is gone.
- ConnectionsFeatured in At the Movies: Episode #1.8 (2004)
- SoundtracksChe gelida manina
from La Boheme
Written by Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
BMG Music
Featured review
A Disturbing But Moving Story of a Child's Forced Maturation
[See IMDb main page for this movie for cast credits-none are known outside Italy]
"I'm Not Spoiled" has enjoyed enormous European success and is being screened at art cinemas in the U.S. Shot in a bleak and desolate part of Italy where tourists are never expected, this story of a family thirty or so years ago is seductively engrossing. All is not what it seems. There is both mystery and madness.
Michele, a young boy about ten or so years old, plays with his sister and a small group of friends in empty fields and among ruins of once well-maintained farm houses, now mute ruins. There is no town as such and the only store seems to have few goods or customers.
Michele's father returns from somewhere and he's both loving and hectoring, bestowing presents and admonitions and allowing the two little kids to beat him in arm wrestling. He appears to be a fairly typical Italian paterfamilias, a nice guy. Mom is likable too.
Exploring a vacant, decrepit house Michele discovers a chained and brutalized boy his own age. Confined to a hole in the ground and blinded by any sunlight, the child is clearly a victim of some awful crime. Michele provides sustenance for the kid but makes no effort to alert anyone to the boy's predicament. And that's fortunate because the balance of the film deals with Michele's growing understanding of why and how this angelic-appearing child in white has been kidnapped and chained in a dank hole.
Michele makes a slow journey to a reluctant and frightened maturity as he begins to understand what is going on. As with so many children, he recognizes that grownups upon whom he depends may be more than they seem to be and much of what they are isn't very nice.
The acting, especially by the two young boys and Michele's sister, is convincingly real, free of affect. Much of the cinematography emphasizes the loneliness of a bypassed-by-prosperity region but the director, unfortunately, succumbed to some mannerized filming. Closeups of small field creatures are shots which add nothing to the story and inject a contrived artificiality.
Not many films successfully center a mysterious and terrifying predicament as a way of exploring children's emotional lives. "I'm Not Scared" does.
8/10
"I'm Not Spoiled" has enjoyed enormous European success and is being screened at art cinemas in the U.S. Shot in a bleak and desolate part of Italy where tourists are never expected, this story of a family thirty or so years ago is seductively engrossing. All is not what it seems. There is both mystery and madness.
Michele, a young boy about ten or so years old, plays with his sister and a small group of friends in empty fields and among ruins of once well-maintained farm houses, now mute ruins. There is no town as such and the only store seems to have few goods or customers.
Michele's father returns from somewhere and he's both loving and hectoring, bestowing presents and admonitions and allowing the two little kids to beat him in arm wrestling. He appears to be a fairly typical Italian paterfamilias, a nice guy. Mom is likable too.
Exploring a vacant, decrepit house Michele discovers a chained and brutalized boy his own age. Confined to a hole in the ground and blinded by any sunlight, the child is clearly a victim of some awful crime. Michele provides sustenance for the kid but makes no effort to alert anyone to the boy's predicament. And that's fortunate because the balance of the film deals with Michele's growing understanding of why and how this angelic-appearing child in white has been kidnapped and chained in a dank hole.
Michele makes a slow journey to a reluctant and frightened maturity as he begins to understand what is going on. As with so many children, he recognizes that grownups upon whom he depends may be more than they seem to be and much of what they are isn't very nice.
The acting, especially by the two young boys and Michele's sister, is convincingly real, free of affect. Much of the cinematography emphasizes the loneliness of a bypassed-by-prosperity region but the director, unfortunately, succumbed to some mannerized filming. Closeups of small field creatures are shots which add nothing to the story and inject a contrived artificiality.
Not many films successfully center a mysterious and terrifying predicament as a way of exploring children's emotional lives. "I'm Not Scared" does.
8/10
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- Я не боюся
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,615,328
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $48,292
- Apr 11, 2004
- Gross worldwide
- $7,354,418
- Runtime1 hour 48 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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