This film will touch all immigrants of any nationality. Those who have made the transition to a new country, tried to find a job and build a new life outside their home will be profoundly moved by this beautifully crafted movie, which is funny and tragic at the same time.

One must preface that the movie is mostly in Italian, that the English subtitles are very scanty and hard to read: half of the humorous conversation is lost or poorly rendered.
There is also some German spoken, which is somehow not subtitled at all. Knowing German helps appreciate the movie. Finally, there is some Greek, which I definitely could not follow, and this is also not subtitled. Probably not crucial, but it really helps if you are a polyglot when you watch this movie!

The story is, anyhow, hard to misunderstand: it is the tragic story of a poor Italian immigrant in wealthy, picture-perfect Switzerland. Nino is a man who needs a permanent visa in order to be able to bring his wife and son to his new adopted country. He has worked for three year as a “guest worker” (Gastarbeiter) and now needs his big break. The initial scene of the movie is a pearl and sets the tone for the whole film. Nino walks in a city park on his day off; the park, like the whole country, is pure perfection…A sunny day (rare in Switzerland, to be honest), sailboats floating on the peaceful lake, beautiful children playing quietly, picnics and picnic baskets from which picture-perfect food is extracted, birds chirping, even a string quartet playing live music for the picnickers. Here comes Nino, transfixed by the harmonious spectacle of this wonderful society. Happy to be part of this beauty, dressed out of respect in his best suit and a tie, he sits under a tree to enjoy the peace, pulls out a sandwich from his pocket, and bites….this makes a rather heavy crunch…and, suddenly, the music stops, the musicians are looking at him puzzled, a lady holding a cake turns to him with a rather stern expression; bottom line, the whole park stops and lets him know politely that he does not belong.

Poor Nino does his best as a temporary waiter: he is set to compete with a Turkish man for the only permanent job available. What follows are the comical adventures of the two in the restaurant, trying to look good in front of the owner and make their adversary look bad. To be perverse, the employer has arranged a joint apartment (or rather a single dilapidated room) for the two men to share.

We follow Nino through a series of misadventures, which lead to his deportation for urinating in a public place (believe it or not, a woman takes a picture of this and reports him to the police – if you know Switzerland, you know this is not unlikely), the Turk getting the position, and his coming back illegally, hosted by his neighbor, a mysterious Greek woman who is actually hiding an 8-year old child, her son, whose stay in the country is not allowed by the authorities; then his meetings with a Milanese millionaire who is in Switzerland for tax evasion and who takes Nino under his wing. The rich man, who is in the middle of a business and personal crisis, ends up committing suicide, which spells another expulsion for Nino; this is followed by another comeback, to work in a shack in the mountains with a bizarre group of Italian immigrants whose job is to kill chickens. Disgusted by these people, Nino is now determined to deny his peasant Italian roots.
A powerful psychological trigger for Nino is the witnessing of the frolicking in the nearby pond of the “children of the owner, with their friends”. One sees these young men and women, beautiful to perfection, fair hair and blue eyes, playing and suntanning naked in the pond. An ethereal soft music frames this bucolic scene, while Nino is looking – almost in a trance - at the “perfect race”. The problem: he is on the other side of the fence, with the other “defective, inferior humans”. Taken by a strong desire to be accepted, to be part of the master race, he dyes his hair blond, dresses smartly and “becomes” a Swiss. His new looks gain him immediately some kind of respect and acceptance, as long as he does not have to speak.

Drifting through the city, he enters a bar and orders a beer, while eying a pretty woman who is probably looking for company. While he gets ready to follow her outside, the TV blares the note of the Italian national anthem. He must turn around and find out what it is. It is 1966, and it is the semifinal of the Soccer World Cup, the historic match between Italy and Germany that Italy will win 4-3, perhaps the most thrilling soccer game I can remember, which unchained two days of wild celebrations all over Italy.

And he is there to witness it, among the Swiss Germans, cheering the German team and joining the verbal bashing of his fellow Italians. “Dogs!”, “Swines!”, “Assholes!”…”Pfui! Pfui!”… In this verbal assault, Nino channels all his resentment against his poor, pathetic country, which forced him to leave home in order to survive.

His scorn lasts only, of course, until Capello scores! Italy 1, Germany 0. Nino’s eyes open wide, his blood reaches slowly the boiling point, and watching the national flags in the stands and his people cheering, he blows up: “Goal! Goal! Goal!”.

What will Nino decide in the end? After he is unceremoniously thrown out of the bar, will he accept his roots or desperately try to fit in this inhospitable country? I will not reveal the end, which is pathetic and triumphant at the same time.

Nino is a man without a country. Every time he hears Italian music, with its glorification of sunny climate and blue sees, he goes nuts. He wants a reasonable life, a comfortable one, like you can only get in a civilized country. Switzerland rejects him. The message is clear: you don’t belong here. Yet he keeps returning, unable to stay away and unable to remain. Nino Manfredi’s interpretation of the poor immigrant is wonderful and touching, really hard to forget.

The movie was made over thirty years ago and is clearly, among other things, a denunciation of Switzerland, (then) a deeply racist country who treated his immigrants inhumanly and without compassion, a beautiful and clean country whose prosperity even today is based mostly on banking laundered money.

The message is perhaps even more compelling today, when western Europe is the target of an unprecedented wave of immigration, especially from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and where racist behaviors are not only deeply ingrained in many of his citizens – who probably feel threatened by this wave of “different” people – but also sanctioned by regional and national governments under policies whose only goal is to persecute the newcomers, who are – on the other hand – needed for the low-paying jobs no citizen wants to do.

But the film is mainly about a human being who does not know where he belongs, floating between two world he cannot inhabit. It is the classical tragic situation, tempered by Nino’s wonderful sense of humor: as most Italians, he can laugh at himself and his problems. This is, after all, the essence of being Italian.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older