Well this is a little jewel of a film. It's one of the lesser-known ones in our Criterion 50-film box set, and the reason we haven't seen it sooner is because it's misrepresented as somehow bleak. In fact, it's rather unclassifiable. It starts as a bit of a Gregory's Girl, as our shy, slightly awkward teenage protagonist Domenico, who reminded me a bit of George Harrison in Hard Day's Night, with his slow, low speech (played perfectly by huge-eyed steel-wool-haired non-professional Sandro Panseri,
whom research shows did not go on to have a career in the industry and died just a few months ago) meets a girl (Antonietta, also played perfectly by another non-professional, Loredana Detto,
who went on to marry the director of this film (and, most famously, The Tree of Wooden Clogs, which I remember the family falling asleep to in Arne over some Christmas break) Ermanno Olmi, but not to act in other things) while interviewing for a job, and is helplessly smitten. This is all happening in Milan, but Domenico lives with his family (doting Father and Mother, annoying younger brother) in a cramped apartment in the suburbs, but the job is for a large company in the city. The actual interview process, and the resulting job enters Jacques Tati/Brazil territory, with the absurdities of bureaucracy/the rat race lampooned, albeit gently.
The film is very slight, if you just describe it scene by scene. We see Domenico feigning sleep (apparently in the kitchen of the apartment) the night before his big interview until his brother comes in to study at the table, because he never got round to his homework and Domenico is outraged to see him using his bookstrap (which, it turns out, their mother has given the boy because Domenico doesn't need it any more). Domenico makes it sound later that he would have wanted to stay in school but the family couldn't afford it, but you get the impression he's not exactly driven. Then the next day Domenico travels by train to central Milan for the interview. This consists of an exam that seems ridiculously easy. A variety of people are there to take the exam, young and old, male and female. One older man doesn't want to give up his paper at the end and seems to have failed to solve the (fairly simple) math problem. Then there's a break for lunch, during which time Domenico approaches Antonietta, whom he has noticed during the exam. She seems a bit dismissive at first, and is, in general, brassy where he is a bit mousey, but she seems won over. The picture in the poster is after she has dabbed some of her perfume on him to get rid of the greasy smell of the cafe where they lunched (separately). He buys her coffee,
they hit it off, in fact to the extent that they're almost late when the day-long assessment resumes at three, and have to race back, Domenico getting to hold her hand to help her across a busy road. The rest of the assessment consists of bizarre exercises and weird questions, and then he walks her to her bus stop, and hopes that they both get the job. He does, and returns, it's unclear how much later, and waits anxiously in the waiting room until finally she arrives. It's utterly charming how both of their faces light up when they see each other. But then they are separated. There is no clerk job for him, so he is made into a messenger (or rather, assistant to the main messenger, who quickly grows fond of him and teaches him the ropes ("trust everybody...except those with two nostrils"). But where is she? She doesn't show up to the lunch in the cafeteria, but a kindly older lady (whom he watches stuffing meat into a hanky for later, because she can't chew it with no teeth) reassures him that she must be in the "main building" and those people take the next lunch shift. He hangs around in the rain to wait for her, but sees her being escorted by two young men, both offering umbrellas, and retires defeated. We see him writing her a note (a Christmas card?) and then he drops it off (in his new messenger outfit, complete with hat, that makes him look like a member of the SS, according to a man who finds him admiring himself in the bathroom mirror)
but she comes out just as he is and interrogates him about why he hasn't come to see her. She's in the typing pool, and has to go back in because she sees her supervisor coming, but tells him to come to the Office Christmas Party. He isn't sure that he can get permission to stay out that late from his parents, but there follows a scene at dinner with the family where it is made clear to us that he thinks he's scheming with his mother to sneak out, but that his father is totally aware of what's going on, and is being signaled to by the mother to leave the room to give him the opportunity. In fact, one of the heartwarming aspects of this film is how nice the older generations are to him, almost without exception. This continues when he gets to the party and finds only an older couple there already. Because he came alone, he gets given a bottle of champagne, and because they didn't, they weren't, so they invite him to their table, partly because they feel sorry for him, but also clearly to get some of the champagne. Sadly [spoiler] Antonietta doesn't show up, and in fact, we have seen the last of her in the movie, but everyone is so nice to him at the party (and ply him with champagne) that he ends up having a whale of a time.
Then, the final scene is of him finally getting the job opening as a clerk, but rather tragically because a man we have been introduced to earlier, an aspiring writer, has died (his desk is being cleared out, including a chapter of his novel), one can only assume by suicide (he wasn't that old). There then follows a squabble over who should get his desk, and Domenico is forced to take the desk at the back of the room with the faulty lamp, taking the place of a man who said he'd been there for 20 years. And scene! It's another of those films that ends abruptly, you think "is that it!?" and then you realize that the ending is perfect. Definitely one that will stick with me. If I'd seen it when I was Domenico's age I think I would've fallen in love with Antonietta. Jami complains that I always compare films with either Gregory's Girl or Billy Liar, and now that she's said that, there's a touch of the Billy Liar in the sense that he is trapped in a dead-end job. But there's less of the whiff of tragedy, because his love hasn't escaped and left him, like Julie Christie, and, unlike Billy, there's no indication that he should be off being a writer or some such. He's an ordinary working-class lad, and he's surrounded by people who look on him fondly and a little bit protectively.
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