Im Not Scared Themes

Director Gabriele Salvatores’ 2003 film ‘I’m Not Scared’ is a film that follows the story of Michele, a young boy in rural Italy who discovers his family are involved with the kidnapping of a child who is hidden in a hole underground. The film is a comprehensive study of the transition between childhood and adulthood, and it uses the theme of this transition to help us understand the character of Michele with much more depth.

The theme of the challenging transition when children become adults is displayed to help us understand Michele, firstly by expressing how Michele’s morality is altered throughout the course of the film. At the start of ‘I’m Not Scared’, Michele has clearly had a reasonably sheltered and safe life; the world still appears

When Michele first holds a conversation with Filippo, the kidnapped boy, and discovers how starving and pained he is, he realizes that he has to help him by finding him food. However, when he goes to the local store to buy Filippo bread, out of his own wages, he is easily distracted by the junk food and the toys. A mid shot that slowly pans across the shelf of colourful toy cars and trucks mounted on the wall expresses to the audience Michele’s immediate fascination with the toys as he enters the shop; he stares for a long moment before remembering he is there for Filippo’s bread, turning quickly away and back to the task at hand. However, he then turns to the sweets, unable to decide between a Kit Kat or a doughnut. Again, he has to stop himself from being distracted by the sweets, another childlike fascination and desperation, in order to buy the bread to help the boy. The emphasis placed on how strangely difficult it is for Michele to avoid the sweets and toys so he can save a dying child demonstrates this theme perfectly, as it is a strong example of how his young mind wants far more frivolous, materialistic things than his adult mind knows to be rational and necessary. The contrast between the two decisions is strong; we as the audience know buying bread for Filippo is far more important than buying toy cars for Michele, but as he is stuck between adulthood and childhood, the choice is ridiculously challenging for him. The director’s purpose in using this method, to demonstrate this theme of transitioning between childhood and adult life, is to help us understand how Michele is in such a tough time of his life, and how he is constantly at war with himself over even the most minor