La classe operaia va in paradiso

"The Working Class Goes to Heaven" stars Gian Maria Volonté, who appeared in earlier Elio Petri films like "We Still Kill the Old Way" and "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion." The Marxist director's critique of capitalist society is at play in this movie as in so many of his others. Volonté plays Lulù Massa, a lathe-operator in a Milan factory which pays by piece work. Lulù is a fast worker, the pride of the management and the bane of the workers who consider him a threat. The work is a nightmare of monotony, and the workers are continually timed and fined for underproduction. "Even a monkey could do this work," Lulù says.

Like the comic tramp in Charlie Chaplin's 1935 "Modern Times," he feels dehumanized, exploited, empty. His relationship with his mistress and her TV-mesmerized son is strained. He asks an older friend in an insane asylum, "How did you know you were going mad? A man has a right to know what he is doing, what he's useful for."

At the end of the conversation with his mad friend (Salvo Randone) at the asylum, the man begins to leave and Lulù inadvertently remains. The insane asylum seems normal, while the factory, the "real" world, appears insane.

Lulù ignores the worker movement and strikers until he loses a finger in an accident while carelessly overworking. He becomes a symbol for the ills of the factory, and a radicalization process ensues until he is fired for taking a stand against the managers.

Eventually re-hired and given a demeaning assembly-line job, he daydreams enviously of his friend in the madhouse.

Gian Maria Volonté gives the beleaguered hero a pathetic and comic dimension which is always convincing, performing with bold strokes rather than by subtle illumination. Petri's directorial technique uses a similar approach. A highlight is an uproarious scene of lovemaking in a Fiat with co-worker Mieta Albertini.

The film won the grand prize at Cannes in 1972. It runs two hours in its full version and 1½ hours in a truncated version peculiarly called "Lulu the Tool." It is a major Italian film from the 1970s.

This film is both fantasy and complete reality at the same time. Gian Marie Volonte plays an extremely efficient worker doing piecework in a factory, not even sure what the parts he produces are used for. At the same time, Volonte's precise rhythm and total concentration make him an object of hate amongst his fellow workers, all of him are continually time managed by snidey supervisors who mostly hide behind a yellow screen in an observation box. A large hand, index finger pointing down oppressively, is printed on the wall above the workers.

Volonte is a good worker but not good at anything else. His son lives with his ex-wife and fellow worker. He can't get it up for his girlfriend, and her little boy spends his time totally consumed by television. Exhausted from working all day, Volonte's only break from routine is to visit and colleague who has ended up in an asylum. Soon enough, Volonte begins to think that what this man is saying is making sense...

Outside the factory, radical communists screams slogans through megaphones and clash with the unions as the workers trudge in to start their shift. Volonte gets to work right away, but his fellow workers are grinding him down, and a lapse in concentration means that Volonte loses a finger and his whole world outlook changes.

Be warned, this film has so many scenes of people screaming into microphones, or crowds of people screaming at each other, that if you're not careful you'll end up with a headache. I'm guessing that might be part of intention of the film to a certain extent. With the loss of the finger Volonte loses his urge to be the best worker and starts to see how his life in the factory may not be a life at all, but all those folk screaming about smashing the system or how unity can get better rights, are they any less self-serving than those in charge at the factory?

Petri does everything he can to make the factory look like some sort of prison, continually filming through bars and even doing the same thing later with a school. Ennio Morricone's soundtrack also enforces the idea of some kind of industrial trap where the self is wiped away in place of production. The film is run down and grey on purpose, but there are a few bits of Petri's weird visuals here and there - like the strange diagram Volonte faces while getting psychologically tested.

The main reason for watching this is for Gian Marie Volonte, who comes across as a guy who isn't that smart, a man who makes an arse of everything and in losing the only thing he was good at starts unravelling. In the Italian language version you can hear how fragile and hysterical Volonte sounds. He seems to mess up just about every conversation and even when he thinks he's made the wrong choice, it dawns on him that he's not the only one that's shallow.

Good film this. Nearly two hours long though!

The movie has a great power, first of all he gives to Lulu a mechanical soul, the camera follows his unhuman movements caused by too much work and let us understand something strange like madness. Then we have the political part: outside the factory people are pemanently screaming verses against owners like another machine that creates words, but the real impressing moment is inside the factory where man and machine became the same things so that the camera let us see the hidden mechanical part and the human movements togheter; the music too (by Ennio Morricone) adds a sense of robotic condition.

The efficient and productive Lulu Massa (Gian Maria Volontè) is an exemplary and beloved worker for his employers and hated by his coworkers. During a period of turbulence in the factory between the union and the radical students against the owners, Lulu accidentally loses one of his fingers. He changes his behavior and joins the movement of the students that wants to stop the factory with a strike as part of the fight of classes while the union wants a partial strike to reclaim benefits to the working class. When Lulu is fired, and gets confused with the new situation. But the union includes his readmission as a subject to be discussed with the owners and Lulu is hired again.

When I saw "La Classe Operaia Va in Paradiso" in the movie theaters many years ago, the fight between capitalism and socialism was in the top in the world and this movie depicted actually the fight between ideology, represented by the movement of radical students, and the reactionary mass without political conscience and formed by explored workers. Lulu represents the servitude of the working class to the monopoly of the capitalist class. Presently this important movie is dated and youngsters may not understand its importance in the 70's. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Classe Operária Vai ao Paraíso" ("The Working Classe Góes to Paradise")

Elio Petri is one of the most important Italian directors: he made some wonderful films about mafia, politics, justice and social equality. Gian Maria Volontè is, in my opinion, the best actor of the last decades of Twentieth Century in Italy: hot-tempered, brutal, passionate, he infuses these traits to his characters. Together, they are an explosive duet. LA CLASSE OPERAIA VA IN PARADISO tells the story of Ludovico "Lulù" Massa, a workaholic machinist who loses his finger in a machine: with his finger, he loses himself, he suffers from alienation and tiredness. But I don't want to spoil anything. The actors are wonderful: Gian Maria Volontè and Mariangela Melato as Lulu's mistress, Lidia, are like a time-bomb, absolutely perfect, both forceful characters. The dirty and denatured cinematography by Luigi Kuvellier, the monotonous and dreary production design by the future Academy Awards winner Dante Ferretti and the repetitive and disturbing score by Ennio Morricone help to build the alienating life of a worker in a big, inhuman factory. And then there's the nervous and indignant direction by Petri that blends everything. It should be screened more often, especially in the schools, but I'm pretty sure that modern Italian boys and girls won't understand this film and, as a result, won't appreciate it.