A Russian Film

This week I went to the movies to see a remarkable new Russian film “The Italian”. It is the moving story about the system which allows young boys to be picked up from various parts of Russia and then held in an isolated orphanage until they can be on sold for adoption to wealthy parents from other parts of Europe. It pulls no punches. The poverty and depravity of Russian towns and country is vividly portrayed.
The story line is about one young boy who is to be sold to an Italian family (hence the title) But he manages to beat the system and find his way back to the city and find his own mother. It is a feel-good ending and helps to affirm the belief that there is still much goodness even in the worst of places.
What does come through as a very strong undercurrent is the extreme vulnerability of children when there is a situation of poverty. Sometimes there are mothers who feel able to sell their own children because of desperation and then suffer such guilt that they commit suicide. There is one sad episode of this in the film. More often it is the criminal networks who find ways to secure children through abduction or false promises.
This film is not about children sold into prostitution but it describes the same process. It is about a criminal network created in situations of poverty where children can be bought and sold and where unscrupulous people make excessive sums of money from the trafficking.
The emotions of the people in the film swing from time to time. A selfish prostitute takes risks to save the young boy. One of the traffickers gets caught in a nasty episode and it changes his behaviour. They are small signs of hope in a sad and despondent world.
The film has received many awards – rightly so.