First-time director Andrei Kravchuk’s The Italian—the tale of an eight-year-old who escapes an orphanage in search of his birth mother—is torn between the stark neo-realism of Roberto Rossellini and the sentimental conventions of melodrama. It’s an uneasy combination (particularly in the film’s final moments), but the remarkable performance by young Kolya Spiridonov as the orphaned Vanya, and the film’s stark portrayal of the New Russia, pack ample emotional punch.

The Italian opens with two gregarious Italian yuppies arriving at a bleak northern Russian orphanage. As the gorgeous SUV pulls into the lot, the noses of miserable young ’uns press—a Dickensian scene, to be sure—against the building’s windows. The orphanage’s inept old drunk of a headmaster has yielded control to Madam (Maria Kuznetsova), a brutal witch who brokers adoption deals with rich Europeans. In her universe—populated with members, like herself, of Russia’s new capitalist class—there is no room for sentiment or ethics, provided there’s money to be made. Transformed into commodities, the orphans band together in a quasi-collective, under the control of Kolyan (Denis Moiseenko), a young mafioso who has his girls turn tricks as well as pump gas for passing truckers.

Most of the young, adoptable orphans turn into pet store window puppies when the Italian pair arrives. Not young Vanya, though. He’s not sure he wants to be the couple’s new accessory. When the Italians pick him nonetheless, promising to come back in a few months, Vanya grows anxious. This anxiety turns to fear when he learns of a mother who, after discovering her long-abandoned son had been adopted by foreigners, threw herself under a train. Fearing his own mother might suffer a similar mischance, Vanya escapes, determined to track her down.

What ensues is a dramatic chase film, with Madam, refusing to let her much-prized child get away, sending her henchman in pursuit. Spiridonov’s poise is astonishing, particularly given how vulnerable his Vanya appears as he travels through a misery-ridden Russian countryside, eluding one grisly snare after another.

The script grows increasingly programmatic in its final third, and the concluding image is wildly, overly hopeful. But Kravchuk has prepared the way for it: the film, with its warm, extraordinary lighting, is as much a fairy tale as it is a gritty social drama. The Italian’s final touches are self-aware; expressions of a hope that could only exist in a fantastic parallel universe, not the harsh one into which Vanya was born.

The Italian is now playing at the Carlton, 20 Carlton St. (at Yonge).