Review of Il posto

Il posto (1961)
10/10
An understated neorealist gem
7 September 2003
Posto, Il (1961)

"Il Posto" (called "The Sound of Trumpets" in the US) is a quiet, sadly humorous movie about the dehumanization of two people who obtain "a job for life" in a major Northern Italian corporation.

Domenico ((Sandro Panseri) and Antonietta (Loredana Detto) are two young adults who meet when both of them apply for a job in Milan. There is definitely a chemistry between the two, and, when both are hired, we expect that their relationship will progress.

The progress of this relationship is confounded when the two are assigned to different buildings, with different shifts and different lunch breaks.

We become aware--before the protagonists do-- that the promise of "a job for life" is a double- edged sword. With the job comes the realization that white collar workers here become cogs in a machine in which boredom and stifling repetition rule.

See this picture because it's a small, quiet, neorealist gem. (Olmi went on to direct "The Tree of Wooden Clogs," one of the finest movies I have ever seen. This early movie shares the quiet, observant quality of Olmi's later masterpiece.)
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