Corsa dell'innocente, La (1992)

So is FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT merely another chase/adventure flick? Excitement, adventure, missing death by inches, so nothing is really known until the end? (FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT doesn't depend on the usual adventure conventions. There's no star power here. Vito's survival is in no way guaranteed.)

The difference between FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT and an ordinary chase flick is the character, the kid, Vito. Colao is slightly built, conveying both fragileness and stamina. He has a hang-in-there spirit, but no magic, no special skills. More to the point, though, Vito is *decent*--in a world that is fundamentally insane.

But Vito is tied to all this horror by blood. They're *his* family that kidnapped a boy much like himself. Seeing Simone's mother and father (Francesca Neri and Jacques Perrin) on TV, he realizes more and more what his family has really done, what they were really like.

Berardinelli's review was good at pointing out this element of morality. But there's another dimension that I can't do much more than mention without giving spoilers. Vito is governed by *honor*. There are some things he cannot do even if he really wants to. There are other things he *must* do regardless of the consequences to himself.

And part of that is *family* honor. They're still his family. His father may be a murderer, but he's still his father. The others are still his family. What is Vito to do when he realizes that? Turn away from them in disgust or hatred? Or embrace their corruption as his own? Those are certainly the options that loom largest for most people confronting such a situation.

*You and I* would either reject the criminal or embrace the crime. Vito, however, looks for something else. And that may be the most important improbability.

We're looking at a kid who is called upon to play a role that most adults would shrink from, and to confront real moral questions that most adults would prefer to pretend aren't there. And he does so, not as a sort of stainless hero, but as a thoroughly ordinary kid somehow rising to the need.

Suffice it to say that whenever he seems to be acting foolishly or pointlessly or suicidally, he is governed by honor. He can't restore Simone to life, but if he can do anything for the murdered boy's parents, he must. He *owes* it to them, and to his family. To Simone's parents, because they are his family's victims; to his family, because by aiding the victims, he reduces their dishonor.

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If the moral aspect distinguishes FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT from an adventure/chase film, it is also different from the ordinary child-in-danger idea. No one is out to save Vito. Yes, well meaning adults are there. The authorities make it clear they're on his side, but that family-honor thing will hardly help him see them as his natural allies. Except (perhaps) for the parents of Simone, non-hostile adults are really just walk-ons in his life. They offer him choices or threats. What happens is up to him.

     This is a story of his choices, his decisions.

The director is Carlo Carlei; he and Gualtiero Rosella wrote the screenplay. The "Sight and Sound" review notes Carlei's "misguided attempt to fuse the racy realism of American film-making with the rural poetry of his native country's tradition." I will certainly agree that one powerful element of FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT is the continual juxtaposition of beautiful, apparently serene, surroundings with the repeated violence aimed at destroying Vito. (And the music by Carlo Siliotto reinforces this dichotomy.) But both the violence and the beauty are the backdrop, not the heart.

The heart is Vito, a completely vulnerable core of decency and truth. The continual attack by hatred and violence, the beauty of the countryside, and the bustle of the city are meaningless without Vito. And FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT works out Vito's choices with a logic that takes that core of decency and truth seriously.

     End of basic review.  Spoilers follow.

Spoilers concern the film's climax and ending.

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I dislike writing a review of this sort of film after having seen it only once. I wrote most of this just after seeing it, but I decided to pass on it, given Berardinelli's basically sound review.

Then the April "Sight and Sound" had a synopsis that demanded a reply. Personal matters kept me from finishing the review, but now the video is out--which verified my recollection of what appeared on screen, as opposed to how it was described in "Sight and Sound."

For those of you not familiar with "Sight and Sound," toward the end there's a section of short reviews. Along with each review is a complete credit list and a complete synopsis. Note: *synopsis*--not one of those vague indications of subject matter we usually get, but a brief telling of the *whole* story--your Compleat Spoiler. It is one of the magazine's towering virtues. I frequently disagree with their point of view, but if I had to suggest one film magazine on the planet, it would probably be "Sight and Sound."

But as priceless as I think their synopses are, they can be dangerous, simply because they purport to be simple recitations of events. In this case, "Sight and Sound" majorly screwed up their report of the ending of FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT. And that misunderstanding appears to have colored the entire review by Peter Aspden.

Note: I don't think this was at all ill-willed, or dictated by cinematic ideology. And it could well be what Aspden *thought* was presented on screen. As we'll see, it's not that the conclusion is simply wrong. Rather it's one of three possibilities. The mistake in the review was to take something clearly presented as a "vision" and to respond to as if it were a reported fact.

In brief, the ending is that Scarface has convinced Simone's father that Simone is alive. The father has gone to pay the ransom, and very likely to get himself killed. Vito hides in the car. There's a confrontation. Vito tells them that he told the father that Simone is dead and not to bring the money. After Vito promises to take them to Orlando's money if the father is released, Vito, Scarface, and Scarface's partner leave. Vito tricks them, escapes for a while, but is shot just before the police show up, killing Scarface and the other. The ambulance takes Vito away. Then, in the words of the "Sight and Sound" synopsis:

"Finally, Vito sits at Simone's desk, having taken the place of the dead child."

The opinion piece picks this up, extensively criticizing Carlei for such a sentimental ending.

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     The only problem is, that's *not quite* what we get on screen!

Notably, in the car, Vito has asked Scarface why he killed Simone--and is told that his brother did it, to prevent Scarface from getting him (and the ransom). Vito's "blood guilt" is higher than we or he thought.

In any event, we see Vito shot, and fall. We see him have a vision of him and his family alive, reunited and happy, at a table with Simone and his parents. Simone says words from an astronomy book of his that Vito has read: "Sea of Tranquility."

Then we see the rescue workers take Vito away. We see the father standing by, thoughtful. (We saw previously that the mother wanted to keep Vito as what most of us would interpret as God's replacement for Simone.) Then we get a vision of Simone's desk, and Vito fades in -- *exactly* where we had previously see Simone as Vito envisioned him. He turns, and smiles.

Okay, doesn't that mean that Simone's parents took Vito in?

The problem is that this is a *vision*, presumably Vito's. And in case there is any doubt that it is a vision, it is an almost *precise* reprise of the vision that Vito had when he went into Simone's room. There, the desk stands against the far wall. Simone fades in, looking thoughtful. At the end, we see the same desk, although now Vito fades in, smiling.

"Sight and Sound" may reply that this can reinforce the replacement idea. Doesn't the first vision sort of predict it? Isn't Simone welcoming Vito home?

Well, at least we have a less straightforward announcement of the happy ending than the review would indicate. But let's deal with what are presented as facts on screen. Yes, the father looks thoughtful. But we have nothing more than that: adoption is only a *possibility*. A more likely, "realistic" outcome is that Vito will be returned to the children's home where the authority's put him. (Because of a scene there, we can view that as actually a rather happy ending, and not opening all the more tragic possibilities of a boy who will always remind his parents of the murdered Simone.)

So, first, there are at least *two* possibilities. The vision is just that: Vito's hope, having as much reality as the one that immediately preceded it, his family's happy reunion.

Unfortunately, there is a third possibility. I said that Simone might be *welcoming* Vito. Well, *where is Simone*?!

The vision is presented, cinematically, *as a vision*. Carlei does everything but hang out a neon sign saying, "Hey! This is a vision! See?!" As such, the scene is inherently ambiguous.

And Carlei has piled ambiguity on top of ambiguity in those last few minutes. In the vision of the families reunited, Vito looks for a smear of blood on his father's shoe--blood he saw before his father was killed, and which he could later conclude was from a murder. It's no longer there. Well, how is blood washed out--except by blood?

At the end, after we see Vito in the chair, the last thing before the credits is a fragment of a poem:

                        "...I want to save you
                    from the havoc that steals you
                          and take you back
                     to sleep in your tiny bed."
                                Elsa Morante
                                (The World Saved by the Children)

Do I need to point out that, at least in the imagery of the English language, something like "to sleep in your tiny bed" is frequently read as implying death?

And finally, what were Simone's last words in the vision? "Sea of Tranquility." Interestingly, at the end of the credits, those words are repeated--by *Vito*. Again, where is Simone?

By misreading--by denying--the ambiguity presented on the screen, by taking what is shown to be a vision as if it were a fact, the "Sight and Sound" synopsis and review certainly give us a tidier, happier story. Maybe it is even one that *I*, personally, *want* to be the case. I can ignore the more somber possibilities it might open up in the future, and focus on the redemption achieved by love and rectitude.

But the screen does not give me that ending as certain. If you want to do an "economics of interpretation," arguably, the return to the children's home is a good middle ground.

But what is shown on *screen* also permits a darker, sadder ending--one that squares tragically with the whole theme of honor and a growing connection between Simone and Vito. Vito can *not* annul his family's crime. In such a darker reading, the deed, once done, can never be undone: it can only be recompensed in blood.

Vito has sustained a serious bullet wound. We can assume he's alive as he's taken away. That's *all* we can assume. We simply are not shown that he indeed survives. That he is shown last in a *vision* is not, traditionally, very encouraging.

I will go even further. Note that I'm talking about what appears on screen. For all I know, the "Sight and Sound" review may have been completely correct about Carlei's intentions. Carlei and Rosella may very well have wanted us to believe that it is absolutely undeniable that Vito was adopted by Simone's parents.

I don't care. That's *not* what they put on *screen*. On screen, we have a vision, not a report. On screen, we have ambiguity and conflicting signals. Between the director/screenwriter and the *screen*, I will believe the screen. And certainly between a reviewer and the screen, I will believe the screen. And, here, the screen is ambiguous in what it tells us.

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Why, you ask, do I rant on about what is, in any event, one possible interpretation of the ending?

     Three reasons, I guess.

One reason is that it shows the effects of a perfectly honest failure to notice things on screen in the last a few minutes of a film. The whole film is changed. Aspden's denunciation is expressed almost totally in terms of the ending. (And, again, I don't blame Carlei. It was clear that the last scene was a vision--not to mention all the other ambiguous elements.)

Second, it shows the distinction between what we see on screen and how we interpret it. Once the screen announces that something it is a "vision," for instance, the game of interpretation becomes noticeably more complex.

The third reason is that we frequently fail to see the moral and the "metaphysical" when they are presented to us as things people actually live. The modern mind wants to have little speeches to warn us that an act is ethical. Ethics, morality, honor, duty--these are things we regard as "political" or "policy" decisions. They are somehow divorced from the things we do every day. That they could be *lived*, that they could govern every decision, and be reflected in every action--well, we don't seem to swallow that too easily. We don't recognize it even when someone rubs our noses in it.

The theme of honor is one of the most traditional in literature. It is also one of the grimmest. That alone should warn us against too quickly assuming there will be a happy ending--even for a genuine hero like Vito.

Having said that we should not assume the best, I should also say that neither should we assume the worst. Sometimes, in films as well as in life, we just don't know. Then, we must rely on hope.