The young man played by Sandro Panseri in Ermanno Olmi’s Il Posto (The Job, in English; or elsewhere titled The Sound of Trumpets) fits an Everyman sort of mold, personality-wise, but he also—just slightly, to me—resembles a young Kafka. He has that same dark-browed, thin and angular quality to him, but also a kind of unintrusive watchfulness one might imagine the Czech writer possessed in his late teens/early twenties, coupled with a quaint naivete to his own appeal. More saliently than mere physical resemblance, however, Il Posto examines its bureaucracy-enveloped subjects with a satirical edge, though the film is more often than not content to simply depict rather than outright excoriate through Kafkaesque absurdity.
Such a move comfortably places Olmi’s Il Posto along the same continuum as the preceding Italian Neorealist movement of his motherland, and such classics as those created by Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Is it as good as something like, say, De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves? I’d wager not, as it lacks the earlier film’s emotional heft and larger societal commentary—but so do most films. Hierarchies notwithstanding, Il Posto might be one of the best portrayals of what it is like to work one’s first job, and of workplace culture, in general. It also manages to fit in an almost hyper-realistic depiction of young romance without cost to the film’s fleet 97-minute runtime.
Il Posto follows aforementioned Kafka-copy Domenico Cantoni as he interviews for and eventually begins working at an unspecified corporate entity in Milan. He lives with his parents and younger brother in a cramped apartment in Meda, Lombardy, and not only does he sleep practically in the kitchen/dining space, but he has been forced to sacrifice his higher education (and his wish to become a surveyor) for his brother’s own schooling pursuits. Domenico, like his father, must work a regular nine-to-five instead, and the beginning of the film involves his commute into Milan to attend a large group interview for a spot at an administrative office.
Olmi lays out his Italian Neorealist influence right away, from the squalid tenement setting to its stripped-down dialogue aiming more to capture casual (i.e. naturalistic) remarks between characters rather than any pointed drama. This is slice-of-life, to a T, but it’s not total mind-numbing mundanity, as Olmi makes sure to capture humorous little moments like that of Domenico’s little brother procrastinating his school-work in the morning, or the banal bickering between his parents. Without fanfare, all this sets up not only Domenico’s environs, but the sort of person he is and is expected to become in light of those environs; and those environs’ limitations, as he is quite literally cornered in his own home sans virtually any privacy.
The film only gets better when Domenico catches the train to Milan, and is plunged into the big city. Olmi’s on-location shooting immerses the viewer into the urban hustle-and-bustle, and the constant shots of what were most likely actual construction projects (this was Italy post-WWII, with Milan itself having been bombed considerably during the war) really captures the overall feeling of transition. That Domenico’s introduction to working life flows in tandem with the city’s reconstruction provides an interesting synergy, where optimism for the future is balanced by both uncertainty and a latent unwillingness to change, as several offhand remarks by side characters express a disdain for the new.
The interview, where Domenico and several other hopefuls are herded into groups and then examined, shows that very little has changed, in spirit, with these routine processes in which one is systematically de-personalized in order to be confirmed as the “right fit” for what is essentially a smartly-dressed cog. Olmi captures well the nervous pressure of these moments, and also the variety of people who might vie for such a position. Perhaps the best moment comes when, during an aptitude exam, an older male applicant who seems to be a struggling father is shown being unable to answer a math question; the isolation of his desperation, and subsequent shame, (alone in a row of empty desks, head bowed) is powerful and unfortunately too true-to-life for many who wish to work well-paying jobs but have not been sufficiently educated.
During the interview, Domenico meets a girl around his age named Antonietta (the beautiful Loredana Detto) and sparks fly. They lunch together, and walk around the city until it is time to reconvene for the interview. Their bonding is very true to life, and realistic touches like awkward, lingering glances (reminiscent of the record store moment in Before Sunrise) or their first time ordering espresso is brilliantly acted, and show just how childish the two are, despite their professional clothes and desire to mimic adult behavior.
Eventually, both Domenico and Antonietta are hired, but Domenico is relegated to a different building. It turns out that all the clerk positions are taken, but since he is already there, they make him a temporary messenger until something opens up. The film then briefly concerns itself with the lives of some of the employees in Domenico’s department, and these few scenes are piquant illustrations of how even side characters could be main characters, if granted protagonist focus. It is also illustrative of the larger idea that the people who move and work among us, and often only occupy our peripheries, are going through their own dramas, like the struggling mother who is being robbed by her own son, or the bespectacled old clerk who stays up late at night writing a novel no one will ever read.
Il Posto is not a film that tries to make overarching claims about society, nor does it penetrate into the psyches of its characters, but it is a good portrayal of a specific time and place that deftly portrays deeper themes like the uncertainty (and fervency) of youth and the impersonalized process of bureaucracy—and how entering the adult world so often means sacrificing the former to profit in some way from the latter.
The film successfully balances many tones, but is mostly light, even comic, until the end, where its closing scene verges on an almost existential despair. Domenico, like a lot of young people, must now learn to live in a world regimented by punch-cards and petty politics, where seniority reigns supreme and even something as wonderful as a first romance becomes mired in corporate competitiveness.
Il Posto’s alternate title, The Sound of Trumpets, comes from a remark made by Domenico’s mother who nags that if he doesn’t go to bed (so enamored is he by thoughts of Antonietta) that only trumpets will be able to wake him up. And indeed, what he and Antonietta share in the space of a lunch break is almost like a dream, so effervescent is their connection; but all dreams end, and you do have to wake up and go to work, and more often than not, after a relentless series of rude awakenings, you eventually forget what you were even dreaming about to begin with.
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More from Ezekiel Yu: Remembered Depths: Reviewing Orson Welles’s “The Immortal Story” (1968), His Barbed Vestments: Reviewing Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” (2017), Wight Screens: Reviewing Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Pulse” (2001)