Maria Montessori: una vita per i bambini (2007 TV Movie) User Reviews

A beautiful film

[blrnani · 8/10 · 6 September 2018]

I was very moved by this film. Of course I'd heard of Maria Montessori - anybody who has any interest in education really must know about her, because she was a pathfinder and inspiration to educators all over the world. Even the fascists of her time wanted to pervert her methods to further their own ends. What I found so nice about the film was the way it showed how her method evolved from her own experiences, including some very bitter personal ones. As a woman - imagine, back in the late 19th/early 20th century - she found herself battling prejudice every step of the way, both against her gender and against the assumed inferiority of the people she was trying to help. But Maria was full of love, strength and determination and she had a fertile imagination that, allied with her instinctive gift of finding the right thing to do, got her through situation after situation and even helped her recover from the biggest disappointment of her life. Indeed it is very sad to see such a wonderful person having to face so much difficulty, but it is also inspiring to see how she kept going and overcame all the challenges in the end. One of the best moments was when the education ministry man compared the test results of her supposedly retarded children with those of the average students across the country and found them to be significantly superior! But at least they applied the test honestly, took the results seriously, embraced her ideas and put them into practice (though many other countries caught on much quicker and made a better job of applying them). She had an impressive way of being able to persuade others to do the right thing that was quite charming, though it caused resentment (even among the persuaded, who often considered her too pushy). There were political entanglements - the film ends with her challenging Italian fascism and there are tense moments (I did not know if she and her son survived, as she'd already done more than enough to cement her immortality, but they both lived on long after Mussolini dangled from a lamp post), but her integrity always shone through and in addition to the wiser heads who were convinced to suipport her, there is another encouraging thing about a long-lived educator - they will come across admiring former pupils in the most unexpected places and often at the most perfect moments! If every parent and school adopted her 10 basic principles, the world would become a much better place remarkably quickly, I suspect.

Enjoyable and absorbing period drama

[fcfisken · 8/10 · 20 November 2020]

Enjoyable and absorbing period Drama. Based on known facts but I'm guessing that many aspects especially of her love life were fictional.

For the children

[sinceverona · 10/10 · 28 September 2009]

Maria Montessori was the first woman to get enrolled into medical school in Rome. The beginning was hard and as the only female enrolled in medical school, she had to wait until every student was in his seat before entering to a lecture. At her second year in 1893, she needed help with her experiment and she asked the first young man in the corridor does he smoke, because she needed the smell of cigarette. Later she found out that he was one of her professors. His name was Giuseppe Montesano and he was a psychiatrist. After Maria learned that he works at the university psychiatric clinic she offers to help. When she comes to the clinic she finds out the ugly truth, that in the asylum there are children without parents and some of them have been there since birth. Soon she falls in love with her professor but the relationship remained secret. After her graduation she becomes pregnant but Giuseppe is reluctant to merry her. She gave a lecture at the Educational congress in Torino about training disabled and there she impressed the minister of education. By then the children from the psychiatric clinic thanks to her famous Montessory method learned how to read and write and they passed their exams with better grades than children from state schools. Paola Cortellesi was excellent in a role of Maria. It is difficult to take a true story and make it into a movie, but it was brilliantly done. There were no false emotions. The scene when Maria and Giuseppe dance together with mentally disabled seemed a bit odd, but everything else was very good. I liked the fact that her parents supported her decision to become a doctor. After Giuseppes mother came and informed her mother of her pregnancy I was very moved when she stood by her side. Her natural capability to approach every child as a different person was very impressing. Yet everything she has done for the children was done with her absolute dedication and love for the children. Giuseppe from a quiet and grateful college professor and then lover became her worst nightmare and bitter enemy. I do believe that he was jealous of her achievements and that her growing fame was the cause of his cruelty towards her. After all, his mother did say to Marias mother that she stole acknowledgment from her son, but it was obvious that was not the truth. The relationship between Maria and her son Mario was very endearing. It was so sad that the woman who has done so much for other peoples children could not do anything for her own son. Definitely worth seeing.