Il posto

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.

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!

"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.

Domenico is a young man in a working class family with his parents and younger brother. With the need for money, he decides to climb the corporate ladder. The pay is low and the term is expected to be a lifetime. He joins a large group applying to join the joyless, bureaucratic world. He falls for fellow applicant Antonietta "Masetti". Her family is also in need and it's their first job. The aptitude test is a maze of Kafkaesque hurdles. The young neo-couple gets two jobs in different departments. There is no place at the clerical position for Domenico who becomes a messenger but he spends most of his days waiting at a desk in the hallway.

Ermanno Olmi is a lesser-known great Italian director. He's overshadowed by his more famous compatriots. That does not mean that this movie is any less than the great cinema of that Italian era. This portrays a young man on the verge of a long journey which may not go anywhere professionally and go everywhere personally. It gives a memorable vision of the corporate world. The young love has an adorable awkwardness. These are kids trying to be adults. It leaves the movie with a realism of post war Italy and a surrealism of the new emerging corporate culture. This is a great movie.

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!