The Working Class Goes to Heaven

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 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 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.

A diligent blue-collar worker Lulù Massa (Gian Maria Volonté) is averse to rebellious fractions within his working place and students who express their resentment of overwhelming physical labour which Lulù and co-workers are constrained to do in factories. Notwithstanding, one day, once he loses his finger in his factory and discerns the first symptoms of madness in his behaviour, he becomes involved in protestations which the scathing board of directors frowns upon…

This is a politically-tinged, existential drama par excellence which succeeds in being both insightful and poignant in its exploration of human condition in the Italian working class whose members are destined for solely biological existence. The stark portrayal of the pointlessness of life reminiscent of Woman in the Dunes (1964) by Hiroshi Teshigahara. Mr Petri, whose political propensities are fully evident here, passionately crafts this material and engrossingly displays the everyday dilemmas of physical labourers whose actions come to eating, drinking and doing their work which is humiliatingly and moronically simple. The frequent juxtaposition of a man and a factory infuses into this film gloom and dreariness which is difficult to bear with. The indication that one might sweep away the meaningless of an individual only through sexual consolation is very disquieting and the depiction of the sombreness and the repetitiveness of each day of life solidifies the sepulchral tone. Just like Petri's earlier I giorni contati (1962), The Working Class Goes to Heaven is a blend of existentialism and neorealism polished to perfection in Petri's hands whose meticulous stylization renders the concept as sulky and austere as the sterile, industrialized decor of Il deserto rosso (1964) by Michelangelo Antonioni. Lulù Massa – the main character of this flick –is the outcome of the mechanization of the unit whose productivity is the only value for his employer. Lulù is the most assiduous worker which arouses abhorrence in his colleagues. He does not attach any great importance to his mental and physical health and he thinks that there is no big difference between dying in his factory and somewhere else. Initially, he cannot comprehend why everybody is against him, but once he accidentally loses his finger and notices that he embarks on following the lane of insanity through his obsessive demeanour towards order, he regains his sight and perceives the world differently.

Even though The Working Class Goes to Heaven is not as Kafkaesque as The Assassin (1961) and Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), it appears to refer to Kafka's short story A Report to an Academy which is about an ape which learns to behave like a human. During his visit in a mental institution where he meets a veteran ex-blue collar Militina, Lulù is shown an article from a newspaper which recounts a story of a chimpanzee which believes in its humanity. Petri seems to liken the Kafka's ape and Lulù, notwithstanding, whilst the monkey from Kafka's tale obtains a new identity by approving of milieu repressing it and adjusting to its new entourage, Lulù Massa restores his personality on account of a calamity and the stifling milieu of his factory, hence, just like in case of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Mr Petri once again turns the world of Franz Kafka upside down.

Besides dilating upon the harsh fate of the working class, the director likewise hints at the exploitation of labourers from the poverty-pervaded southern Italy. Other Italian intelectualists such as Pier Paolo Pasolini also alluded to this phenomenon. Mise-en-scene by Elio Petri is exquisite and thoroughly unfaltering in its exposing the major concept. The resonance of his last acclaimed opus is indubitably enormous. Apart from delving in the issue of alienation and helplessness, the highly flamboyant subplots reinforce the main theme and endow it with abundant background and owing to relatively deliberate pace, the content is never lunged too hastily.

The acting is simply excellent throughout the entire motion picture. Gian Maria Volonté conveys to his role such a great portion of galvanizing rampage that he ravishes with his commitment to his part which might be one the most powerful in his utter career. There are other phenomenal performers in the cast, such as facially distinctive Mariangela Melato, Flavio Bucci, and last but not least enthrallingly convincing Salvo Randone.

The subsidiary cinematography by Luigi Kuveiller is obviously a determinant of quality, but what emerges from his beauteous takes of impoverished flats of physical workers is the mutual sway between Bertolucci and Petri. Bernardo Bertolucci conceded his fascination with merging existentialism and neorealism in I giorni contati by Petri, and Petri seemed to be enchanted by the lighting and visual aspect in The Conformist (1970) which was visible in the case of The Working Class Goes to Heaven. The shots of indigent flats framed with gleams of blue radiance constitute a chilly, bitter aftertaste which exerts a beneficial impact on the other ingredients. The symbiotic soundtrack by Ennio Morricone is one of the most idiosyncratic elements and the flick would feel totally different with a distinct piece of music from another composer. Mr Morricone provides us with one of his most unusual and characteristic creations which is rapid, aggressive, contextualises with the ensemble absolutely perfectly and reverberates like a genuine machine.

Though the movie overzealously strives to inculcate Marxist doctrines in its viewers and Petri's appeal to social alignment is displayed here, it does not modify the fact that it is an exceedingly significant film which has to be analysed, discussed and considered to be a major motion picture which auspiciously encases the atmosphere of those days filled with protestations, but also exhibits a timeless struggle of a man attempting to retain dignity, despite difficult living conditions and tough work.