Il posto

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.

"Il Posto" is an extremely simple film; by that I do not refer to its intelligence, which is on par with anything written by Sartre or Hobbes, but its way of representing its characters and the environment surrounding them; they are not shown with an emotional and artistic grace, as in a film by Visconti, but rather in a plain (but not dull) and un-grandiloquent way. They are shown not as heroes, or rebels, but rather as ordinary people, with ordinary problems inside of ordinary lives. But even through this simplicity, Ermanno Olmi finds beauty.

It is about a shy and timid young man from a small village trying to get a corporate job in Milan; he meets and falls in love with a beautiful girl who works there; he tries to court her. It is also an extremely (and extremely subtly) political film; we see the day-to-day lives of the middle-aged employees, and their interactions with others. We see the poor, the rich, and those in-between, there interactions and their place in their world, and how they stay that way. It is, as well as an intimate character piece, a film of society, and its flaws.

It's a film of sublime beauty, though not on the surface. Its a film that leaves the viewer with a sense of every emotion possible: humor, sadness, tragedy, innocence, etc. Its a social and emotional documentary-as-fiction. Its a film I wouldn't hesitate to call perfect.

Olmi delivers a involving study of one young man's initiation into the corporate structure. The lifelike ambiance and natural tone of the picture are remarkable, and the emotions it generates universal. It's hard watching the final images and not hoping for the protagonist's escape from the reality of his situation. A Criterion DVD edition excellently revives this important work from renowned Italian director, Ermanno Olmi. Simply stunning!

This is a quiet film, but it leaves a lasting impression. For the good of his family, a young man (Sandro Panseri) has had to abandon his dream of continuing his education to become a surveyor, and hopes to get a job at a big company that's hiring in Milan. From the moment he steps into a crowded room of other applicants, we feel for him. We can already probably appreciate the anxiety associated with the life transition he's going through, but here it's amplified by the dehumanization of the process and the drones who run it. This continues on when he gets a job there, after which he's put at the same desk with an older worker, and finds that his actual duties are somewhat nebulous. It's so absurd as to be comical, especially as he encounters various forms of petty behavior and bureaucracy in the office.

Lightening the mood a bit is a love interest; he sees a young woman also interviewing (Loredana Detto), and has lunch with her. Even here we sense his awkwardness as he tries to make conversation, and then later struggles to re-connect with her. Panseri registers his feelings very well, often without speaking a word, and it helps that he has such a baby face. The scene where he attends a New Year's Eve party, showing up when only an older couple is present, sits through the somewhat cheesy entertainment, and is cajoled to dance by some kindly older women feels incredibly realistic, and of course this is what director Ermanno Olmi was going for.

Another memorable scene occurs after a worker dies, freeing up a desk for him, but everyone then vies for a better desk, and shifts positions. This may be a little exaggerated, but it is how it feels sometimes in a corporate setting, and the film made me think of Bob Dylan's words "twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift." There's a deadening of the soul that's taking place here, and while we suspect that the young man will be ok as his life plays out, there is a tinge of sadness in it.

This is a marvel of film-making, Director Ermanno Olmi, following in the Neo-realist mode of his predecessor Roberto Rossellini, made this as only his second feature film (his first, TIME STOOD STILL, of 1959, is little known, though apparently excellent; it appears to be unavailable with English subtitles). This film has no frills. It is a brilliantly evocative 'fly on the wall' observation of what it was like at that time in Milan to try to find and retain employment. The sadness, the disappointments, the heartache, the bullying, the exploitation are all observed without comment. The two central performances are by Sandro Panseri as the boy Domenico and Loredana Detto as the girl Anotnietta, both seeking their first jobs, and both ending up at the same huge company where they work in separate buildings and essentially never see each other again, despite having bonded and formed the beginnings of a romance. Panseri's innocent and naked performance is positively inspired, but after appearing in two further films over the subsequent four years, he retired from acting, and today apparently manages a supermarket in Milan. Loredana Detto never acted again, but she married Olmi in 1963, and they have three children. The script for this film was jointly written by Olmi and someone named Ettore Lombardo, who never wrote anything for the cinema again. (One might make a mystery film about what happened to the people involved with Olmi in this film, and call it THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING TALENT.) The delicacy of Olmi's handling of this film is miraculous. He realizes the Neo-realist ideal to its full. He gets as 'close to life' as one can reasonably get without being personally involved, and he observes what is happening as if he were an invisible angel monitoring human activity with a helpless sense of melancholy (remember Wim Wenders's WINGS OF DESIRE, 1987, which may have been partially inspired by this earlier style of film-making by the Italians, as Wenders is such a knowledgeable film historian). This film is infinitely sad, but then so is Life.