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Il Posto - Criterion Collection
Category: DVD |
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $26.99 |
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As of: November 20th, 2008 09:43:00 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Cinema - as good as it gets.
If you think cinema is incomplete without roller-coaster thrills, suspense, sex and explosions, think again. Try something different for a change - it might wake you up. Here is a marvelously modest tale about a teenager seeking his first job, bewildered and intimidated by the rituals of the workplace. Although the director's empathy with his cast is clear, this film's main strength stems from its rigorously simple story-telling, leaving the audience free to enjoy the fact that the main pleasure of a tale is in its telling. This film goes far beyond the pedantry of the social realism of its time and the 'story' is transparent and uneventful and may seem almost non-existent, yet this film is so good that it'll get you off your couch and make you want to direct films yourself (that's what it did to me). A masterpiece.
 A Place to Be Until You Die
Put yourself in the shoes of Domenico. Here's his big chance to leave the dead-end existence of his small-town life and get a job where he can find lifetime security. Note that is a big issue.
Apparently, good jobs are hard to find in the Italy of the day. Ambitious young people aspire to work for a large corporation in the big city where they will be assured of employment for life, even though as they know, the large companies don't pay particularly well. But then judging from the film, they don't have to work particularly hard either. You'll see that once Domenico is hired and placed temporarily as a messenger, the guy who is supposed to show him the ropes actually shows him how to spend the day doing the absolute minimum.
The questions asked in the interview process, the test they are given, and the impersonal and often brusque way prospective employees were treated should have given all of them a clue as to how lame the job is going to be. The problem they were given an hour to solve was a joke, I solved it in my head in under a minute. On break, the shy and hangdog Domenico is befriended by an attractive young city girl, Magali, who also hopes to find employment at the firm.
Once Domenico is accepted, he returns to the firm to get his assignment and anxiously looks around the waiting room for his new friend. He was almost about to give up but was relieved when she finally arrived with her mother. But he worries aloud about what will happen in life to the ones who were not chosen. That says a lot about the Italian economy at the time.
Nearly everything about Il Posto outside the friendship between Magali and Domenico paints a bleak picture of the soul-wilting future the young faced working in a corporation where advancement depends solely on someone senior leaving, usually by dying. The ruckus raised at the end by the older worker over the desk Domenico originally was assigned to shows that after so many years at the firm, all a worker had to look forward to were the meanest perks of seniority. That dimly-lit room where the clerks had to work makes modern cubicle mazes seem like heaven in comparison. Then there was that awful party...
Il Posto is realism at its starkest. There is no action to speak of, the black and white photography helps to imbue it with an aura of gloomy resignation. And once you see it and ponder the future of Domenico, you'll be ever thankful that such a life is not in your future and that such work is not looked upon today as one's economic salvation.
Sweet, innocent and CLEAN!
This is a sweet, innocent film about a young man who gets a job in a huge corporation. We see the laborious and unorthodox process he undergoes to get the job in the administration department, first as a messenger, then to clerk. It is a clean movie with absolutely no offensive language or situations.
In 1961 director Ermanno Olmi made a film that reflected his reality when he was a young man in the corporate world at Edison Company. The premise of the cold and faceless corporate world is that if you get a job there, you have it for life. He said that people in these huge companies lived in their own world, ate there, and didn't do much but go home and come back the next morning, They were separate from the rest of the world, met their loved ones, had affairs, etc. It was a community where much of an outside world didn't exist to them.
The movie is rather unconventional, but it has its tender and humorous moments. There is no invasive soundtrack and the only music comes from specific surroundings.
Domenico, meek and mild mannered, lives with his brother and parents. They encourage to land the corporate job, knowing that once in, he is guaranteed a job for life. During the weird hiring process, he innocently befriends a young woman. We never see the two intimate and their relationship is a backdrop to his pursuit in the company. We don't know what happens afterwards.
He is introduced to the corporate New Year's party where he attends alone looking for his special friend and then just gives in to the fun. Today, we still view this as the same corporate party we might attend today.
Special features in this DVD is commentary from the director who details how this movie reflected his life, his use of genuine characters and actual locations. Included are another short film about school boy's crush and about 10 minutes on the restoration process.
With the restoration, the movie is sharp, crisp although sometimes subtitles prove difficult to read. This is movie is unique and entertaining and most of all it is clean!....MzRizz
 A nice change of pace for Italian films
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film
"Il Posto" roughly translating to "The place" in English is the first italian film I've seen of it's kind. It follows he story of a young man from a rural area of Italy, who moves to the city of Milan to get a job. He begins work at a corporation and finds a girlfriend.
The film has some nice scenes of corporate life as it was in its infancy in Europe. and has some impressive acting.
The DVD released by Criterion has some nice special features also.
Thre is a deleted scene, a theatrical trailer, an interview with director Ermanno Olmi and Tullio Kezich who worked with Olmi on a nubmer of films. It also has Olmi's short film "La Cotta" or "The Crush" made in 1967.
There is also a restoration demonstration which is the most detailed one have seen yet.
It is sure to please.
Love and loneliness
Note that also included on this DVD is a short film Olmi did for Italian television called La Cotta. It is surely one of the most charming morsels of cinema ever made, and alone would be worth the price of this disk.
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