The Working Class Goes to Heaven

The Working Class Goes to Heaven is a film full of loud, abrasive people but set in a world where being loud and abrasive is how to get to people - whether for positive or negative results (or a mix of "well... now I'm out of work and hanging out with some loonies at the asylum"). I was always impressed by the energy and ferocity of Gian Maria Volonte here, though early on I wondered if the energy level had already reached a peak - I'm talking in the first major set piece where we see Lulu, the "Company Man" so to speak who is super productive and is all about work-work-work he is already pitched so high. But this is by design since by minute 30 he loses a finger in an accident with the machine, and then he is left out to dry by his employers - how come he isn't productive and is slipping, the guy in the lab coat coming around to needle him points out, you only lost *one* finger, after all - and realizes he should join the Union organizers and student protesters.

It is almost like it isn't just the character but the film itself that is at a high temperature, like the blood pressure is 300 over 150 and it barely gets down. But this is a story that you may go in thinking will be a polemic or of sociological interest mostly and instead reveals itself, thank goodness, as a character study of a man who comes to realize he actually, really, does not enjoy working. That is something hard to get into Lulu's mind, and like any hot-blooded creature he takes out his stresses on his girlfriend (he has a biological child who is with his mother in another family) and just at his co-workers at large. It's a film that seems like it is at a high velocity, yet it isn't until Lulu is let go by his employers - staying on the hood of one of the bosses's cars and not getting off till he is dragged away in a frenzy may do that - that director/co-writer Elio Petri shows what change is happening to Lulu: without work... who is he?

Not unlike Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Working Class hits its richest moments when, comparatively at least to early on and especially in the middle, it quiets down and we see Lulu in his desperation in his apartment (his girlfriend and son leave him after he brings over demonstrators to his place at night as they plot their next moves) going through his closet, or as he calls it his "museum" to throw things out. He gets some news right after this and the story and character deepen even more, in particular there is that look in Volante's eyes that shows that despite getting what he supposedly wants by the end it doesn't cure a much greater unhappiness.

Indeed the film is really about that most of all: are you happy or unhappy with what you have in your life? There is a scene midway through where Lulu and a co-worker have a sexual tryst in his car, but since it is, well, the size of a small 1970's Italian car, it is extremely difficult to maneuver and painful and, of course, it is over far too quickly (the food is terrible - such small portions, that old joke). This is what Lulu has put blinders over himself early on, even as there is this desperation in his eyes about what he is doing at that factory and having that crazy out-put (one piece, ass piece, something along those lines he says to keep up his momentum), and by near the end he has a victory in a sense but fails to change himself on an emotional level, and that is the tragedy shown here.

Not a great film, but a very good one and featuring a performance that once again shows how versatile Volante was as a performer; extra kudos for Melato as the frustrated partner who gets as fiery as he does.

The efficient and productive Lulu Massa (Gian Maria Volontè) is an exemplary and beloved worker for his employers and hated by his coworkers. During a period of turbulence in the factory between the union and the radical students against the owners, Lulu accidentally loses one of his fingers. He changes his behavior and joins the movement of the students that wants to stop the factory with a strike as part of the fight of classes while the union wants a partial strike to reclaim benefits to the working class. When Lulu is fired, and gets confused with the new situation. But the union includes his readmission as a subject to be discussed with the owners and Lulu is hired again.

When I saw "La Classe Operaia Va in Paradiso" in the movie theaters many years ago, the fight between capitalism and socialism was in the top in the world and this movie depicted actually the fight between ideology, represented by the movement of radical students, and the reactionary mass without political conscience and formed by explored workers. Lulu represents the servitude of the working class to the monopoly of the capitalist class. Presently this important movie is dated and youngsters may not understand its importance in the 70's. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Classe Operária Vai ao Paraíso" ("The Working Classe Góes to Paradise")

"The Working Class Goes to Heaven" stars Gian Maria Volonté, who appeared in earlier Elio Petri films like "We Still Kill the Old Way" and "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion." The Marxist director's critique of capitalist society is at play in this movie as in so many of his others. Volonté plays Lulù Massa, a lathe-operator in a Milan factory which pays by piece work. Lulù is a fast worker, the pride of the management and the bane of the workers who consider him a threat. The work is a nightmare of monotony, and the workers are continually timed and fined for underproduction. "Even a monkey could do this work," Lulù says.

Like the comic tramp in Charlie Chaplin's 1935 "Modern Times," he feels dehumanized, exploited, empty. His relationship with his mistress and her TV-mesmerized son is strained. He asks an older friend in an insane asylum, "How did you know you were going mad? A man has a right to know what he is doing, what he's useful for."

At the end of the conversation with his mad friend (Salvo Randone) at the asylum, the man begins to leave and Lulù inadvertently remains. The insane asylum seems normal, while the factory, the "real" world, appears insane.

Lulù ignores the worker movement and strikers until he loses a finger in an accident while carelessly overworking. He becomes a symbol for the ills of the factory, and a radicalization process ensues until he is fired for taking a stand against the managers.

Eventually re-hired and given a demeaning assembly-line job, he daydreams enviously of his friend in the madhouse.

Gian Maria Volonté gives the beleaguered hero a pathetic and comic dimension which is always convincing, performing with bold strokes rather than by subtle illumination. Petri's directorial technique uses a similar approach. A highlight is an uproarious scene of lovemaking in a Fiat with co-worker Mieta Albertini.

The film won the grand prize at Cannes in 1972. It runs two hours in its full version and 1½ hours in a truncated version peculiarly called "Lulu the Tool." It is a major Italian film from the 1970s.

The movie has a great power, first of all he gives to Lulu a mechanical soul, the camera follows his unhuman movements caused by too much work and let us understand something strange like madness. Then we have the political part: outside the factory people are pemanently screaming verses against owners like another machine that creates words, but the real impressing moment is inside the factory where man and machine became the same things so that the camera let us see the hidden mechanical part and the human movements togheter; the music too (by Ennio Morricone) adds a sense of robotic condition.

The Spirit of Social Justice of the May '68 uprisings is still very much alive in this heavy-going but compelling parable of the rise and fall in the fortunes of an Italian factory worker dubbed Lulu (Gian Maria Volonte'): starting out as the Boss' darling for being the exemplary employee and pacesetter of the company, the loathing of his co-workers (who despise him for how his excessive zeal makes their own lackluster performance look bad in the eyes of the manager) and his female companion Mariangela Melato (who never gets any piece of the action at night because of his constant fatigue) eventually gets to him one day – with the result that he loses his concentration at work and suffers the loss of a finger in an accident. This changes his whole outlook on life as he becomes engrossed in an extremist workers' union, finally makes love in his car to a virginal female co-worker/union member he is obsessed with, is quitted by his consumerist hairdresser companion and his surrogate son and, when he is given the sack at work and is on the point of selling off his belongings, another more moderate workers' union comes to his aid by winning him his old job back. Although there is obviously much footage here of socio-political discussions, scenes of picketing and police riots, confrontations between diverse unions, etc., the film also has that winning whimsical streak promised by its title and exemplified by amusing episodes in a mental institution (where Volonte' visits his cracked-up ex-colleague Salvo Randone), the quasi-surreal sequence of Volonte' taking it out on all his useless possessions (including a giant inflatable doll of Scrooge McDuck!), and the concluding description at the assembly line of the titular incident itself which Volonte' had in a dream the previous night. Ennio Morricone's inventively 'metallic' music underscores the robotic gestures of the factory workers who, despite slaving eight hours a day at their machines, are not even aware what becomes of the parts they produce! While the film may seem overdone and dated in today's apathetic age, it clearly hit a nerve at the time of its release winning a handful of international awards including the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.