Il Posto [The Job] **** (1961, Sandro Panzeri, Loredana Detto, Tullio Kezich, Mara Revel, Guido Spadea) – Classic Movie Review 6158

Writer-director Ermanno Olmi’s 1961 black and white drama film Il Posto [The Job] tells an acute and perceptive story of a poor young Italian man called Domenico (Sandro Panzeri), a college graduate who is in the process of trying to get his first job as a junior clerk with a large corporation in a big office in Milan.

Working in the tradition of Italian neo-realism, using non-actors in authentic locations, the film focuses on the ordinary young man’s grim everyday struggle for existence.

Olmi observes his characters with a kindly gaze and an appealing sense of wry humour, tinged with sadness, and encourages lifelike performances from the amateur actors. Of course, it comes as no surprise that the film is partly autobiographical, and that Olmi was a clerk in a Milanese company, like his hero, for more than a decade.

Co-star Loredana Detto, who plays Antonietta Masetti, a girl Domenico meets while seeking a job for life, is Olmi’s wife.

It is shot by Lamberto Caimi, produced by Alberto Soffientini, scored by Pier Emilio Bassi, and also in the cast are Tullio Kezich, Mara Revel and Guido Spadea.

Italian film director and screen-writer Ermanno Olmi (1931 – 2018).

RIP great Italian neo-realist director Ermanno Olmi, who was born on 24 July 1931 in Treviglio, Lombardy, and died on 7 May 2018 in Asiago, Veneto, aged 86. He was also known for The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) and The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6158

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