Ciao, Professore

Some people may be afraid to try foreign films because they fear the other cultures are just too different from their own. The wonderful thing about Italian culture is that they are often more outspoken than we choose to be, and this can make Italian cinema a real treat. One such movie, "Ciao, Professore," seems similar to many movies already done in America, but it goes the extra step to create a great “teacher mentoring troubled children” type of film.

Italian actor, Paolo Villaggio, plays Marco Sperelli, a diligent school teacher who is assigned to a different part of the country. You learn very quickly that he is sent to Corzano, a bit of a dump in the south, instead of Corsano, the beautiful town in the north.

Since he is a divorced middle-aged man in a new town, Sperelli finds a small room to rent with some outlandish owners. He tends to keep to himself, but does his best to adapt to the new situation. If you know nothing about Italian culture, the movie will not be very confusing. We have so many films about prim and proper educators moving to the inner city to teach, so think of this movie as that kind of a situation.

Upon exploring the town, Sperelli discovers that almost all of the children he will be teaching are out working jobs to make money for their families. Instead of letting this continue, the teacher pulls all of the children away from their jobs and forces them to attend school. The personalities of the children are loveable, annoying and somewhat arrogant, but you quickly find your favorites.

The principal of the school understands the mix-up of the teacher’s assignment, and says he will be relocated whenever someone else decides to move him. There are janitors at the school who lack any admiration for children, and even have the kids pay for toilet paper or snacks. At least there is a humorous twist on all of the seedy people who work in the school and who run the town.

After finally getting the children to attend class regularly, Sperelli assigns them to write journal entries. The funniest parts of the movie becomes listening to what the children have to say about their families and their personal lives. The teacher even does his best to reach out to the most troubled student, even helping his family in a time of crisis.

The movie ends with Sperelli getting reassigned, since it was bound to happen eventually. There are definitely some cheesy moments when he gets ready to leave the students, but the film does a great job of capturing how the children feel. Sperelli starts the movie with a bit of a closed-minded approach to life, but ends with a bigger passion for teaching and for accepting different kinds of people.

While the film is entirely in Italian, it is easy to watch the subtitles and pay attention. It does come with an R rating in America, but if your children aren’t able to read subtitles it won’t really matter. There are quite a few curse words spoken by just about every character in the movie, but as long as you don’t mind those it really seems to be a PG type of film.

Written by: Sarah Folmar

Reviewers Rating: 6.5
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