Il Posto (1961) - Ermanno Olmi

I'm a total history buff and before I sold my soul to the devil and became an accountant, I majored in history with a dream of becoming the female David McCullough.  I enjoyed Il Posto far more than I thought I would because of its pragmatic observation of corporate culture and the so-called "economic miracle" in Italy between the end of World War II and the late 1960s.

First, some background.  After years of economic and political unrest, countries like Italy were susceptible of falling under the rising tide of communism in postwar Europe. In an effort to contain communism abroad, the Truman Administration extended economic aid to Europe through The Marshall Plan with the goal of stabilizing these postwar economies and fending off Soviet influence.  Between 1946 and the mid 1960s, Italy received more than $1.5 billion of Marshall Plan money as well as contracts to produce munitions for the US Army in the Korean War...another front of America's containment policy in the Cold War.  This injection of money and manufacturing helped Italy's GDP grow by more than 4% annually in the 2 decades after World War II.  This economic turnaround was nothing short of a miracle.  Italy's economy rebounded to be stronger than it had been prewar and turned the country from a rural society of peasants to a manufacturing and industrial powerhouse that was third only to Germany and the United Kingdom.  It is within this economic miracle that Olmi's work takes place.

 The film's protagonist is Domenico, a young boy from the outskirts of Milan who goes into the city to interview for a job that once he gets, will likely be his career for life.  The interview consists of a series of seemingly random aptitude, physical, and psychological tests.  During the interview, he meets Antonietta, a young girl from San Siro who like Domenico, has forgone high school to start work in this bustling economy.  After Domenico gets a mail room job with the company, he quickly realizes the monotony of corporate life and for most of the film, Antonietta represents a beacon of light in the otherwise mundane workplace.

The pair's meeting seems so serendipitous and Domenico is visibly excited at the prospect of working with his crush.  This fantasy is quickly dashed when he ends up in the mail room and she gets assigned to be a typist in a completely separate building.  Nevertheless, Domenico goes into work every day with the hopes of running into her but this proves impossible because they have different lunch hours and his day ends 15 minutes after hers.  Domenico's crush is both endearing and heartbreaking but it's something that is so relatable.  Antonietta never tries to come see him but he still clings onto the hope that they will meet again.  With his first paycheck, Domenico buys himself a jacket that she mentioned she liked and waits for her in the rain.  When he finally sees her, she is on her way to the fair with a group of colleagues and arm in arm with another young man while Domenico watches from a distance, his new jacket soaked from the rain.

Il Posto is the film equivalent of an album by The National in that it explores the disillusionment and lonely reality of corporate culture.  Olmi bisects Domenico's story with glimpses into the mundane and heartbreaking lives of his coworkers  in a way that feels prophetic.  You can't help but wonder whether these people went through the same interview process as our hero and that their reality is Domenico's future.  Olmi's work is an unromantic examination of this so-called economic miracle through the lens of a character who is essentially a child forced into a very adult world.  Even as the soul crushing reality of his work settles in, Domenico holds into the belief that there will be a happy ending to this job...or at least he wants to believe in a happy ending.  In his mind, he's going to earn some money and take the girl out for coffee which they will both enjoy.  As it turns out, he takes her out for coffee with pocket money from his mother and they both find that they aren't particularly fond of coffee.

 Economic growth brings about prosperity which in theory makes people happier. However, as economic stability steadily transforms Milan into a bustling metropolis filled with consumerism and "prosperity", it's hard to argue that these material things bring people actual happiness.  Domenico and Antonietta's families constantly urge them to do well in the interview because once they got the job, they would have it for life.  In theory, our own personal economic stability is supposed to put us at ease but the reality of having one job for life is thoroughly depressing.  It's heartbreaking to watch a child recognize that in order to achieve his own personal economic stability, he has to accept that there are dreams which will never be realized.

Olmi's work is a commentary on the choices and sacrifices we all make as adults in the face of "real life" obligations.  At one point or another, we all enter "the real world" and no matter how cynical, we do so with exuberance and far-reaching dreams.  As the reality of financial constraints and obligations settle in, most of us are forced to choose: do you want to live comfortably or do you want to chase this unlikely dream?  Most of us come to the realization that life at the bottom of the economic ladder sucks and so we settle on doing something that we enjoy but it isn't necessarily fulfilling.  So there's the question: does your personal financial stability outweigh the nagging voice in the back of your head that says you are unfulfilled and something is missing in your life?