Chacun à son poste et rien ne va

ALL SCREWED UP is an Italian comedy with serious overtones, made by Italy's "bambina terribile", Lina Wertmuller, in 1974 just before beginning SWEPT AWAY. It is a colorful and lively story about a group of young migrant workers and the problems they encounter after moving from southern Italy to northern Italy's bustling metropolis, Milan. They include two country yokels played by Luigi Diberti and Nino Bignamini. They all live together in a sort of commune. Some work in a slaughterhouse, others in a huge hell-hole of a pizzeria kitchen run by an exploiting wheelchair-ridden old crone. The place is itself an image of that crazy carnival called Italian urban life. Luchino Visconti's ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS had similar situations. A few of the migrants end up as thieves. Santo, the father of seven children, gets mixed up with some neo-fascists and goes to jail for a crime he didn't commit. Some of the girls are waitresses and chambermaids who moonlight as prostitutes, The film is a whirlwind of action, and its scenes have a frenzied quality. Its energy and Italianate charm produce many good moments (those wonderful old men who shout "hungry, hungry!" in front of a store.) Yet the characters never emerge as anything more than interesting stereotypes, and Ms. Wertmuller's social criticism is schematic and superficial. The original Italian title translates as "Everything in place, nothing in order."

Hitchcock told once how not to devise a film: to photograph/record/film talking people. This principle here is violated to its extreme. Not only are the figures talking all the time: they talk very fast, at least two of them talk at the same time, they talk about inconsistent matters.

For the first time, I switched on my mobile phone to get distracted.

Twice, references are made to animal cruelty: kill cats, stab to death young goats. The scenes from the butchery are to be borne. Typical for bad directors from the South to shock people for hiding the absence of a good story.

And women's abuse: the boy tries incessantly to have sex with the innocent girl from the countryside. She tries to hold him off by all means: crying, spitting, biting. Of course, he succeeds, and in the end she finds it great, of course.

Nonetheless, abstain.

Despite being from the golden 70s period where Wertmüller flourished, this is one of her more minor films as it doesn't contain any of the regular actors like Giancarlo Giannini that she used during that time. It's still a fantastic film though, and if you love Wertmüller, you'll love this as well.

Unlike most of her most famous works All Screwed Up was set in then contemporary Italy. It's an ensemble comedy featuring some of Wertmüller's most treasured themes, the gentrification of Italy, immigration, class mobility and gender politics. The film starts out with two men from Sicily who have just arrived in Milan. They meet a crying young woman, also a new arrival, and help her find her cousin. They end up living together along with several other ragtag individuals. As time goes on, some of them put off love in order to find financial success, while others are eaten up by the city.

Nobody does tragicomedy like the Italians, and Wertmüller is a master at this kind of tone. The movie is absolutely hilarious but at the same time exposes soul crushing truths.