Italian neo-realism meets the sentimenal: Umberto D.

Vittorio De Sica's film Umberto D. is a double-past-tense film, made in 1952 in b/w like most of the great postwar European films but set sometime before the war, probably about 1935-40?, hard to tell that at first except that the cars look vintage though later in the film there's a single reference: Do you think there will be a war? That puts it in context for American viewers - clearly a time of great economic distress, but not a time of ruination in Italy, as we see in the other great neo-realist films of the 50s such as Rocco and His Brothers or Bicycle Thief. Though this film, too, is neo-realistic it's much more of a personal drama (based on a novel, I suspect) about a single elderly man who's caught in an economic vise. Film opens with a great and famous sequence of a large group of elderly pensioners marching on what I think is Rome City Hall demanding a raise in their pensions - they're being squeezed by inflation and facing dire poverty, in this time of very few social supports if any. We gradually focus on the eponymous Umberto - but bcz of the opening sequence we realize his story is one among  many - probably each man in the demonstration could have a similar tale. But his is especially sad and moving because he is completely alone - in fact over the course of the whole movie we learn nothing about his back story other than that he worked for the Department of Public Works (probably in an office job, judging by his manner of dress - suit and tie and hat). He cannot afford the monthly rental for his somewhat squalid room; his landlady is hard-hearted and is primed to evict him - his only solace is the maid who works in the rooming house (this was a time when the grand houses and apartments in Rome were often broken up and into rooming houses; today, these are either highly expensive private dwellings once again or expensive boutique hotels) who helps him out despite troubles of her own, and, most significantly, from his little dog, Flike. The man-dog relationship always pulls heartstrings and no doubt it's what keeps this movie fresh and vivid, but it's not just a sentimental weepy - we see along the way some incredibly powerful and sad scenes: the elderly men dining in a communal mess-hall style restaurant, where Umberto tries to sell his pocket watch; Umberto tentative and shamed starting to beg for money on the streets, his visit to the animal pound in search of the strayed Flike, his stay in a city hospital ward - a glimpse of what medical care was like ca 1940. Some may balk at the open ending of the film, but it's still stands 70 years later at one of the best cinematic portraits of an elderly man in great distress and buffeted by forces far beyond his control (Tokyo Story would be another).