I'm Not Scared (2003)

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I'm Not Scared (2003)This is just slightly offbeat enough it might grab you good. And the main character, a 10 year old boy, is really effective—believable, compelling, complex. That the movie isn't a masterwork might not matter—it has parts, and aspects, that are really strong.The concept is basic—some back country thugs have gotten themselves into a kidnapping, and they aren't really quite good enough at the task to follow through. So the child is captive in a hole in the ground. That's weird and awful enough to get your attention. And it comes to light slowly, as the main character stumbles on this fact and then tries to befriend the captive boy without the kidnappers finding out.Which of course isn't going to happen. The movie really gets intense in the last half hour. Before that it is slow to the point of too slow for my taste—lots of scenes of the kinds playing in the dry loneliness of some part of Italy made of wheat fields and little else. It's set in the late 1970s, so there is no real technology involved—no cell phones, no computers. Just an old television that the group gathers around for the news once a night.The plot actually isn't what carries the movie, though I'm sure it's necessary as a vehicle for some. What works best is the whole situation—the simple folk with big ideas about the world in this beautiful but utterly isolated (and unnamed) place. If you tire of endless scenes of the kids running or biking through the great landscape, you realize the director didn't quite have much else to work with. A better sense of the kid's family, beyond the kind of rough clichés presented, would have given the movie needed depth.As it is, it's strangely simple, and yet the simplicity is what matters, and what made like it as much as I did.

touching, beautiful, impressive. circle of childhood in the impact with adults universe. result - a kind of cruel poetry. it is not original story. only special. for the admirable performance of Mattia Di Pierro and Giuseppe Cristiano. for the Italian flavor and precise science of details. for the portraits of each character. for the powerful impression of an old theme who gives in this case splendid nuances. a film about solitude. and freedom. about decisions and cowardice. about wise choice and Christianity in a not usual note. a film like a large open window. impressions, images, delicate end. a film like a clock because it can be victim of many snares. but the art of Gabriele Salvatores, the script as work of Niccolo Ammaniti gives force and seduction to film step by step. because each event can be predictable. but the surprise remains in each scene in a extraordinary measure.

I just happened upon "I'm Not Scared" at the library. I'd seen the preview several times through the years, thought it looked good, and never came across it 'til today. I'm so glad I finally did! This is a truly beautiful film, from the stunning cinematography all the way to the very emotional story of two young boys meeting under extraordinary (and scary) circumstances. The acting was fantastic, particularly the young protagonist played by Giuseppe Christiano.It's almost like a crime thriller told in story-book-speak. Pretty understandable since it's seen and told through the eyes of children.Absolutely brilliant and unique! I can't BELIEVE this escaped Oscar notice!!!

'I'm Not Scared' tells the story of a boy whose idyllic childhood in southern Italy is disturbed by the return home of his father, and his discovery of a dark secret linked to his father's absence. The film is nicely acted and shot, although it lacks the atmospheric depth of Andrei Zyagintsev's 'The Return'; it also made me think of Guy Burt's novel 'The Dandelion Clock', with which it shares a different set of similarities but which arguably presents a more interesting construction. Whereas, although this is not a bad film, I never felt it offered anything beyond its basic premise, although this itself is well worked through and never overplayed; still, I'm a little surprised at the number of awards it has won.