Umberto D.

I don’t know whether the ending of Umberto D. is optimistic or devastating – on the one hand, the love the main character has for his dog has saved his life; on the other hand, he has no home, and life ahead for the duo is sure to be full of more sorrow.

Umberto has dignity: he worked for the government all of his life and only desires to be left to age gracefully in peace. However, his pension barely covers meals for himself, and he gives most of his food to his dog, Flika. The woman who owns the house where he rooms takes half of Umberto’s money, and still rents out Umberto’s room to amorous couples in the afternoons without his permission. Everything Umberto does is about surviving and preserving his dignity. He comes to find throughout the film that having both is impossible when there’s not enough money coming in and society around him provides no sympathy whatsoever.

The film is universal in the way it connects emotionally to the viewer, yet it never reaches for easy sentimentality. De Sica excelled at this type of filmmaking, with his Bicycle Thieves operating in much the same way. However, where Bicycle Thieves soars dramatically in its finale, Umberto D. commits to understatement, looking at Umberto’s situation objectively. De Sica presents Umberto and Flike’s tale without manipulating the audience into buying into any message. Many films inspired by the Neo-Realist movement popularized by Italian filmmakers like De Sica and Rosselini fall prey to that foible: they have an agenda to convey and sometimes their stories rush to that point, leaving the viewer feeling like they have arrived at a contrived ending through tired plot tropes. Umberto D. succeeds where other films of its ilk fail because the viewers grow to care about the old man and his dog by understanding his day-to-day life and believing in Umberto’s convictions. He doesn’t care about the respect of others; rather, Umberto seeks to preserve his self-respect. Anyone can identify with the desire to maintain one’s pride in oneself, and at the end of the film, the viewer can understand why Umberto chooses life, running with his beloved dog Flike into the distant horizon.