|
I like Nino Manfredi, so when I came across a film starring what is considered one of his best roles, Pane e cioccolata (1973), directed by Franco Bruzati, I watched it. The theme of the film – Italian immigrants to Switzerland who went there in search of work, in principle, is relevant to this day, and not so much for Italians, but for representatives of many other countries and not only for Switzerland. The main character Giovanni (Nino) Garofoli has been living in Switzerland for quite a long time, switching from one job to another, this time first we see him competing for a place as a waiter in a restaurant with one Turk. The case ends with another failure for him, new ordeals begin for him - at first he was sheltered for a few days by his former neighbor Elena (Anna Karina), a Greek immigrant who lives with her illegally imported son, then he tries to settle in the mine, then turns out to be among the illegal immigrants on a poultry farm, sometimes he is already going to go back to his homeland, he tries to even pretend to be a Swiss, dying his hair, but breaks down, in the end he is expelled, however, at the last moment Elena comes to the station, who seems to be married, and then he refuses to do this, but we see that he is old.
The film, in principle, is not bad, has earned many awards in its time and was very popular, it was shot not in a serious, but rather in an acutely satirical manner, we see, of course, in what terrible conditions these immigrants live and what a miserable existence they lead, but it is shown not in a very dramatic way, we do not press on pity, they are shown by not so pretty people, although there are also their kind of characteristic features – cheerfulness and love of singing, but sometimes it annoys Nino himself, they behave rather bladly, and he is not very good manners. I might have liked the movie better, but there was something I didn’t have in directing to make it happen.
|
