While waiting for the ERMANNO OLMI retrospective at the French Cinematheque in 2015, I am fortunate enough - thanks to the Italian National Broadcast (RAI TRE) and its night FUORI ORARIO program, to be able to watch I RECUPERANTI, another forgotten gem of the Italian cinema. Made for TV in 1970, the film was released ten years later in the French cinemas. We follow Gianni returning home to his northern mountains in Veneto just after the Second World War, and finding a difficult economic situation. Will he have to go to Australia like his brother or will he stay because his girlfriend, who waited for him for so long, asks him to ? After a genuine and unfortunate try to start again the local sawmill (very interesting scenes) as a cooperative, he meets at night an old man who looks like a homeless but who talks about gold in the mountain (which gave the film its French title)... meaning the metal hidden under the ground, the metal from weapons and ammunitions left by the First World War in this part of Italy which is known for having been a very combative and bloody war front between the Italians and the Austrians. Thus starts their search for metal to be sold, with the inevitable risk linked to the explosive... mixing the study of their relationship and the conflict between tradition and modernity, between society and marginality, in the remains of a war context. Thanks to two wonderful non professional actors whose spontaneity is perfectly directed, thanks to a perfect staging of the camera which proves Olmi's knowledge of true documentary filming (dynamic shots and care for the truth of the places), thanks to a very fine script (by Kezich, Rigoni Stern and Olmi), the film is simply a must see.
