No Dogs or Italians Allowed

An animated film that gets off to an awkward start, with the author's clumsy voice-over as narrator slowing things down. Then, as we move on to the characters and their migration, the film's drama arouses interest, and the film manages to conjure up snatches of emotion from time to time.

Alain Ughetto tells the story of his Italian family in the early 20th century, of poverty and immigration to France. Through various key moments in the family's history, and in the short history of the world (the rise of Fascism in Italy, the Second World War, the German occupation of France, liberation, racism). This is the most interesting dimension: the animated film shows the precarious condition of immigrants.

Not all great stories that make it to the cinema are starred by real actors. NO DOGS OR ITALIANS ALLOWED (2022), written and directed by Alain Ughetto, is an example of this. In addition to accumulating writing and directing, Alain Ughetto also constructs, with his own hands, the characters/family members, immortalizing, in the title, the discrimination to which Italians were subjected in a country that they helped to modernize.

It is a cinematographic work filmed in slow motion, which stands out for its personal and moving narrative, while taking, at the same time, an in-depth look at historical events that shaped the 20th century. The film is, as has often been said, a love letter from the director to his Italian ancestors (grandparents), Luigi and Cesira Ughetto, who faced the difficult journey of emigrating from the Piedmont region, in Italy, to France. A story of hunger, misery, wars and disease, occasionally interspersed with moments of hope and happiness.

One of the notable aspects of this film is the way in which it skillfully balances the story of the Ughetto family with the historical events that serve as a backdrop and give it a chronological order, in particular the Italo-Turkish war and the two world wars, connecting the Ughettos' personal experiences with the turmoil and significant changes that occurred in the world during this period. This approach gives the film a universal dimension and makes the family's story a microcosm of the struggles and challenges faced by humanity throughout time.

Among the animated figures, in some sequences, a human hand appears that dialogues with the narrator of the story, the grandmother, and which can symbolize both Luigi's talent and skill, and the importance of manual work, which is passed down from a generation to another, as well as the journey undertaken by Alain Ughetto's grandparents on the path to building a better life for their children and grandchildren.

Through using doll-animation, (very nice made dolls!) the true story of a family which has to go through a lot, comes very close. The storyteller present the story in a very nice, artistic way. The intermingled show of a bodypart of the real storyteller give some extra spices. I also learned quite a bit over history, how all what happend between late 19th cenutey and now to personal lives.

Some other opinions: To tell the story of a gift-hands-on skills and the courage to work the land to live and raise a family-inherited from an Italian grandfather from Piedmont... a slice of Italian history between the 19th and 20th centuries, who worked between Italy, Switzerland, and France with courage and determination to "make it" and support a family. A beautiful idea and a great poetic touch for creating clay characters, which take the viewer on a journey through the different stages of the grandfather's journey to establish his family in France and obtain naturalization, using a few well-chosen archival images. Moving. Sober.

Being one of the oldest techniques used in animation cinema, stop motion has been reborn, in recent decades, as a privileged vehicle for many authors (who doesn't remember Tim Burton's famous animations in the 90s), after a period of of relative oblivion.

The vintage effect seems to attract new authors, who complement it with digital techniques and artistic daring, such as mixing real and animated images, as an integral part of the narrative. Here, the director himself, through his voice and a hand, interferes in the story, like a true character.

Technique aside, the film is a tribute to the director's grandparents' generation, to the time of migrants, who fled from hunger, on their mountain villages, in search of work abroad. Where they endured, with a smile on their lips and recognized patriotism, the racist humiliations of their hosts, because you should not bite the hand that feeds you.

A work for future memory, of a time of misery, war and survival, which contrasts, so much, with the comfort and pride of subsequent generations.

As my grandmother used to say, they are all rich now!

This little stop-motion film is fantastic. I loved the way where the reality of the little clay figures and their author interact, I loved how the tone is always measured, never shrill or pathetic, and how the story is simple and relatable, even if you are not an Italian or an immigrant.

I wish that I could conjure my grandmother how the author does, and portray my own family past in the same vivid way. I am surprised that this film, at the moment of writing, has only a rating of 7.2. This is a mini masterpiece, full of creativity and emotion.

There is a little mystery around the runtime: I saw it today at the Italian Film Festival in London, and it was definitely shorter than the advertised run of 1h 20m. Some themes, like the titular one of anti-Italian racism, are very underdeveloped, barely touched at all. I wonder if it has been re-edited after release.

Nevermind, go and see it, it's a delight.