Rating: 3.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 5/52 | Most recently added film in your watchlist
Class conscious or class clown? Why not both?
Turin, late 1800s From 5:30 AM until 8:30 PM, textile factory workers toil tirelessly. Near the end of the day, fatigue causes a worker to drift off, resulting in a machine accident that mangles his hand.
While visiting the hospital and gathering donations for his family, some workers form a committee and make a case for shorter hours. The management warns them against saying such things, as the boss might fire them if he heard them.
So, they decide they need collective action to make their point. They try walking out an hour early but fumble it.
While trying to think of another strategy, Professor Sinigaglia, a professor and labor activist, encourages them to escalate into a full-blown strike.
Despite a couple of outliers, the remaining group agrees. The professor helps them prepare and to understand the weight of what they’re doing. They will suffer financial loss and exile from their neighborhood suppliers. It will take all of them working together to survive.
Perhaps none of this sounds like a comedic farce to you. It didn’t to me, either. But this is a complex work with several historical forces intervening to motivate this odd film.
Turin, 1962 Ninety thousand workers went on strike against harsh factory conditions and poor pay. The situation escalated when a right-wing union, UIL, incited a riot in Piazza Statuto. Though the strikers occupied the factory during part of it, the changes to policy were minimal.
What changed, however, was the increased education and awareness of workers.
The 1963 film mirrored the strike in a 19th-century context, emphasizing the political defeat and rising workers’ awareness.
Director Mario Monicelli and writers Age & Scarpelli saw the writing on the wall. They had a historical vision of what loss looks like.
By 1968, a wave of worker and student protests broke out in Italy, lasting for years. By the early 1970s, conditions for workers significantly improved.
Where is the comedy in this story? The comedy isn’t in the story but in its characters. The titular organizer, Professor Sinigaglia, epitomizes this. Though eloquent and grave, he is also an imperfect human character.
A Comedy of Errors After giving the speech that motivated the workers to strike, he finds a sandwich one worker left behind. He unwraps it to eat it. The worker returns for his sandwich. The professor silently wraps up and returns the sandwich. The professor is surprised, but he is not ashamed.
The professor is a runaway criminal who forsakes his family and occupation. Yes, he loves helping the workers organize. He also loves sex workers. He is a human, not an ideal.
Other characters also exhibit these “flaws” of character that cut into the weight at odd angles. For today’s audience, it won’t be a laugh riot. The jokes are there all the same.
And so, the movie comes together in a nuanced and faulty way. It matches moments of beauty — the black-and-white cinematography and period-accurate sets and clothing are masterful — with moments of humanity.
This movie embraces tragedy with its comedy instead of using comedy solely as a coping mechanism.
As an experiment, it doesn’t work. The ending feels unexpected and more depressing than the material suggests.
But it is still a fascinating attempt.