Ciao, Professore! (1994)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Great Film overall

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Sometimes you almost forget you saw a movie, and then it comes back in a flood and there's some pleasant memories or not so much. Ciao Professore is that moment when I look this movie up on IMDb and realize that I sat and watched the thing from start to finish and have a memory of even enjoying it... and the reason it's in a haze is because it was shown to me in Italian class in high school. Was it good because it was something distracting me from the pain of high school, or because it was genuinely good and funny and insightful? Somewhere in the middle, and I think that having to watch it and note the Italian words was a part of my ambivalence in liking it more. Maybe I'd feel different about it today. For now I'd say if you ever come across this movie about an unconventional Italian teacher getting the town's wayward third grade students into something better than before with comic results - sort of like the wacky version of a Lean on Me, if that can possibly make sense - watch it, it's fun. If you go in expecting the Wertmuller of Seven Beauties, it's not that. It's her making a "kids" movie... which has its own edge, to be fair.

Yes, there's the exploration of the teacher - pupil relationship, the North versus the South (Italian-style) dichotomy, the familiar refrain of an elder imparting wisdom upon youth. But what I find most fascinating about the movie is the fact that the kids are, in many ways, more experienced, or understanding of real world survival than the professor. And so, in a sense, throughout the movie, they seem to be teaching him what life is about, too. I find it quite satisfying, then, that in the end, the professor and his pupils find a compromise in their morals and behavior that mutually benefits them and their relationship. The scene of the teacher and the kids speedily absconding on their bikes perfectly symbolizes the professor and his pupils' transformations.

Many of Lina Wertmuller's movies (such as "Seven Beauties" and "Swept Away") have dealt with the North-South divide in Italy. "Io speriamo che me la cavo" (called "Ciao, Professore!" in English) has Northern Italian professor Marco Sperelli (Paolo Villaggio) getting sent to a destitute town near Naples and having to get used to being a teacher there, especially with the presence of a young hoodlum in the school. Maybe it's not Wertmuller's greatest movie, but it is something that I would recommend - although I should warn you, there's some stuff here that might be a little shocking to find in a movie dealing with children. Buon viaggio!

In this truly delightful, if formulaic, Italian film, we get a portrait of an Italian school teacher from the north of Italy who is mistakingly assigned to a grammar school in a town outside of Naples. There he meets all sorts of opposition as an alien invader with the strangest of ideas: respect for kids and a passion for teaching. The school is called De Amicis, which the locals mispronounce, and is named after Italy's great author of the children's classic CUORE. He starts out his career here by literally dragging all the kids to school. They prefer to work to bring in extra liras or else flirt with the law in black market or other illegal operations. Little by little this Italian Mr. Chips gains the confidence of the kids and their respect, genuinely teaches them, and shows concern for their personal problems.And what charming kids they are! In fact that charm is part of the film's major flaw: its contrived and relentless use of cuteness, in the selection of the young performers, in the resolution of the plot.There's the little girl who is always on the teacher's side asking "Can I tell you something intimate and personal?" There's the chubby kid Nicola who must have his periodic brioche (croissant) during the day, the little boy who sleeps in class because he works at night, the poor girl who must care for her infant sibling because dad is always drunk, the delinquent kid who is in trouble with the law. And yet, despite the obviousness, it wins us over. Paolo Villaggio as the teacher Marco Tullio Sperelli is nothing short of marvelous, but the movie belongs to those sweet-faced kids...who are forced to recite so much obscene and raunchy dialog they would probably never utter in reality. As a teacher of Italian I have shown this film to high school students and they invariably lap it up. It is good for a discussion of the perennial north-south conflicts in Italy, an issue that the obnoxious thug of a school custodian and the arrogant principal constantly bait the good-intentioned Sperelli with. An interesting aspect of the film missed by American audiences reading subtitles is the humor generated by the difference between the dialect spoken by the locals, including the kids, and the standard language of their teacher from the north. It's a difference that becomes nicely bridged by the end of this improbable but likable movie. The original title IO, SPERIAMO CHE ME LA CAVO means "As for me, let's hope that I survive" and is the final line of bad-boy Raffaele's composition for the teacher who has won him over despite his resistance, because he took the trouble to help his sick mother get to the hospital. It was also the title of the book the film was based on. The American distributor's title CIAO, PROFESSORE is much better. The film was directed by Lina Wertmuller and is much more appealing than her overblown and more famous movies like SWEPT AWAY and SEVEN BEAUTIES.