L'emploi

If you summarize the plot of this remarkable movie, it gives you absolutely no idea of how good it is. A shy young man applies for a job, his first ever, with a large corporation in Milan. If he gets it he will be "sistemato" (all set) for life. He takes the entrance test, observes the other applicants, meets a friendly girl also seeking employment. We see in flashback some of the desperate lives of the other employees. The boy gets the job, begins working, finito!

IL POSTO (THE JOB) is more than that, however. It is a sensitive look at what people are and what impersonalized modern industrial society is capable of doing to their humanity. There is a fine Christmas party scene in which people's loneliness outweighs their frolic. In the movie's understated but unforgettable final image, our young hero looks oh so content working in his secure new job in his little back row desk, but the sounds of the mimeograph machines (remember those?) getting louder tell us that he too someday will become lost and crushed as others have been before him.

The film was renamed "The Sound of Trumpets" upon its initial U.S. release, a title which makes no sense for this gentle yet incisive work from the director who would later give us THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS and CAMMINA CAMMINA.

I encountered this film almost accidentally one evening, and was not expecting a lot from it. Certainly, I had no way of knowing in advance what I was in for. With relative indifference I sat down, pressed play, and ended up experiencing one of the greatest movie experiences of my life. I sat in my chair, taking in the film, and was breathless. It never took a wrong step.

As a film-maker myself, I kept a critical watch, waiting for Olmi or one of his actors to misstep. However,I can happily say that 'Il Posto' is a flawless picture. It is deeply moving, visually beautiful, and has a resonating power unlike almost any other film.

I sincerely wish that more people could see and appreciate this picture, and that it was more widely available, because I consider it one of the greatest accomplishments in cinema history. Olmi's beautiful, universal film is worthy of standing alongside the best of Bergman, Kubrick, or Bunuel. Please seek it out!

This is a film about ordinary people and it is told in an extraordinary fashion; a young man is not terribly excited to be entering the corporate world--and with good reason. But family and custom and lack of formal education can be persuasive, and so he tests for a position and finds himself in a well-ordered black and white world where individuals count for very little; sounds grim, but director Olmi has a keen eye for the richness of humanity, for the sensitivity of existence, for the quiet celebration of being human. This is a remarkable document, all the more so for being without breathless pacing or minute-by-minute explosions or rounds of gunfire; this is a quiet masterpiece about the richness that can be found by merely observing and the loneliness that is a quintessential part of being human.

This is a shimmeringly beautiful, subtle and very powerful movie about all-too-ordinary people aspiring for "a job for life", and falling into an existence which will kill off any inkling of vitality, individuality and creativity in them, day in, day out. Olmi isn't a filmmaker I often see discussed on this website's boards, not even in a context about Italian filmmakers. Along with Mauro Bolognini, another wonderful but seldom-mentioned fellow countryman of Olmi's, he is occasionally mentioned for The Tree of Wooden Clogs, but not much else. I'll confess I'm not overly familiar with Olmi's oeuvre myself - however, since watching his 1961 gem Il Posto about a month ago, I have barely been able to contain myself and have tirelessly recommended it right, left and centre.

The dehumanising effect of the large corporation, with its ant-like clerks and bureaucrats becoming tiny clog in a faceless machine, is a universal and timeless theme, starting probably with Fritz Lang's Metropolis all the way down to Naomi Klein's No Logo. I never cared for Terry Gillam's Brazil, nor did I consider Sam Lowry an adequate embodiment of the "insignificant" clerk. There was something over-styled about him, something which made him ultimately hip and cool, and something gratingly farcical and rhetorical about Brazil and all its characters generally. On the other hand, Il Posto and its protagonist, the ultimate sympathetic wet rag of a clerk, is achingly real, yet at the same time a sublimely beautiful artistic creation that could probably not have been summarised as successfully by a less accomplished filmmaker. The measured, yet powerful visual satire in Il Posto is probably what I'd wished to see in Gillam's movie, and didn't.

The New Year's Eve office party scene is pure genius and should be studied in film school as a cinematic sequence close to technical, thematical, aesthetic and atmospheric perfection. It conveys so much at once: humour, pathos, social satire and extreme loneliness, besides being beautiful to behold and incredibly original cinematography-wise. It is at once highly artistic and entertaining, accessible. Quiet desperation: there's no better way to describe these characters' condition. Though Olmi doesn't spare us their selfishness and pettiness, he never fails to depict them with humanity and respect, thus showing his eye is a disillusioned, but not misanthropic or cynical one.

One of the final scenes in the movie, in which a gaggle of clerks fight for the privilege of sitting at a recently defunct colleague's front desk, is one of the most depressing sights I've set eyes on. And yet, you can't help but feel deeply sorry for these hyenas in cheap suits and neon-pale faces, rather than feel angry or scornful against them. You just want to scream to Domenico to "Get out while you can!!!" The poor, gormless, meek, dork-boy, bumbling through his first taste of a mediocre adulthood, a boy you fear might probably never grow enough of an awareness or backbone to react against such a dehumanising system. Antonietta, also know as Magali, the pretty girl he meets during the company's selection process of the applicants and fast develops an attraction for, seems to have more individuality, more resources to survive the dehumanisation process. But then, you think for a moment about the fact that from a very early age, Domenico had been designated as the one who'd drop out of school early so that he could go out and contribute to the family's meagre income. Meanwhile, his younger brother had been chosen between the two to continue studying, perhaps even get a high school diploma or degree, thus fulfilling himself and improving his lot. One would assume that from childhood, the milder Domenico had been treated as the "dim" one, the one who'd rightfully sacrifice himself to allow his more promising brother to emerge out of their family's working-class, suburban obscurity. The scary part is that this isn't simply a dramatic plot device to increase the pathos - it's so plausible and depressingly true to life for its time and context!

I was also deeply moved and touched by the fleeting appearance of the character of the older, married man who miserably fails the first written test (the one that the corporation's applicants take in an empty, grand old palace, so at odds with the suburban squallor and Northern Italian, typical 1960s industrial modernity). He embodies, epitomises and belongs to pre-economic miracle Italy, back when illiteracy and a rural existence was the norm. Probably either almost illiterate, or unable to apply even the most basic principles of arithmetic, he's a throwback to another era, which had ended roughly around the 1950s. He desperately tries to fit into the city, the burgeoning industrial North, the new Italy, but miserably fails before even getting anywhere. How will he and all those like him survive in this dehumanising shift into a brand new, industrial era? It's heart-breaking. Though Il Posto is also so much about Italy and its staggeringly fast move throughout the 50s and 60s from backward rural country to world industrial power, it remains first and foremost a universal, timeless movie. Very highly recommended.

This is one of those rare moments in cinema when the picture really is worth a thousand words and the director has the confidence and wisdom to let the film and his actors "speak" for themselves.

We join the film with young Domenico preparing to take the big exam to get on with a firm in the city. If he can pass the test and be hired, he will be set for life--a great thing according to his father.

The film has a way of showing us the range of emotions and doubts that race through the young Domenico's mind as he experiences the city, working life, and even a hint of romance with a beautiful young woman at the firm. The actor is such a natural and we are captured by his sense of wonder that is so effectively conveyed through subtle looks and gestures. And the film is certainly not without its moments of humor--there are wonderful moments throughout that allow us to laugh at the ridiculous nature of the working world and the folly of ordinary people.

This is a true masterpiece of Italian neo-realism and I strongly encourage taking the time to watch it and savor every little nuance. You will be charmed.