Affreux, sales et méchants

(1976) Ugly, Dirty and Bad/ Brutti, sporchi e cattivi (In Italian with English subtitles) PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

Although, the movie doesn't have a plot, it does however, introduces us to a family living together in a boarded-like shack in one of the most poorest locations in Italy. It's located high on a hill, near a highway which can be labelled as your average dumping ground. The head of the household is Giacinto Mazzatella (Nino Manfredi) who appears to own this little shack along with his wife and older sons and their kids scrunched, sleeping together on whatever small spaces s/he could find. And each one of the members are throwing hissy fits with one another, especially the head of the household, who is the father. He throws the biggest fit of them all who sleeps with a loaded shotgun beside his bed getting all paranoid, about his bundle of money which he hides it on different locations, wherever he could find. His mother whose like the oldest member of this family does nothing but watch TV, whereas each morning everybody else leaves doing what hoodlums do, which is thieving and loitering. Much of the movie showcases the father with his one good eye grumbling about his no good kids, with the neighbors who clash at them. As we the viewers observe the family squabbles with one another, particularly against the father, it is still fascinating to see how each of them cope with another this long, for although their lifestyle is routine, it's still enough to keep our interests from sticking to them until the very end.

I would not call this a comedy. Maybe a tragicomedy. It is true, some scenes are funny. But that's not the point. The point is to give an hyper-realistic, painful portrait of extreme ignorance and poverty, and its consequences. These people cannot afford to be good, honest, or have any positive family feeling. Like prisoners in a Nazi camp, they are deprived of all their humanity. The only thing that keeps the family united is the shack they live in, and the idea of taking Giacinto's money. I want to stress the fact that the movie _is_ realistic. There _were_ shantytowns around Rome in the seventies. And the people _were_ like that. The constantly mocking and jocking attitude is a trait of the Roman popular culture. It does not mean they're happy and light-hearted. So beware, this movie won't just give you a good laugh. If you like it, check this out as well, I don't think you can buy it, but the Italian RAI TV showed it some time ago:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0073339/

Nino Manfredi, only professional actor here, shines in this Ettore Scola movie as Giacinto Mazzarella, a former convict with a long series of crimes and a huge, quirky family. He's violent, vulgar, amoral; he lives surrounded by dirt, squalor and poverty. Yet, he's funny. This movie is too funny! Scola directs a group of actors headed by Manfredi, who shows off an irresistible accent, and by Maria Luisa Santella as Iside, Giacinto's mistress, a fat, sweet but silly woman with an "ancient name". But it isn't a carefree comedy: behind the quips and the jokes there's a grotesque depiction of a miserable reality not very far from San Pietro, the most important Catholic building in the world. Not a perfect film, but a very good one.

After all these years I still come back to this movie, enjoying a true art. Although it shows the so-called-life of the people from the bottom, it's still a beautiful portrait of the human race in its essence: we are truly ugly, dirty and evil inside, behind all those masks we wear. This is "human" deprived of all the "civilization". The movie itself is a masterpiece. All those shots, casting, directing, music, dialogs, scenes that make you cry and laugh and disgust you simultaneously, all led by the master Scola. One should not review any movie without previously watching this one. This is what any movie should be: a picture of life. Sometimes funny, but mostly loathsome. And we're all just animals inside, just give us a chance to show it. Highly recommended as "a must".

This is an extraordinary film. A pitiless portrait of human race. Scola describes the life of poor and marginal people with no compassion, showing all their miseries and perfidies. In this sense, the film is very close to another masterpiece, Viridiana from Bunuel. Everything in this movie is so disconcerting (beginning with the slum which has a magnificent vista to St. Peter's Cathedral) that it also remembers me of David Lynch's works. Besides all that, the film is absolutely hilarious.