Il Posto (1961)

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Better known as The Sound of Trumpets, Il Posto was the first feature-length effort of the highly singular Italian filmmaker Ermanno Olmi. The director has acknowledged that the young protagonist, played by nonprofessional Sandro Panzeri, was based on himself. Bursting with big dreams and plans, Panzeri arrives in Milan, where he goes to work in a big impersonal office. He yearns after a pretty female coworker, but he is most desirous of moving "up" into the desk next to his. By the time he accomplishes this (via the death of another employee), Panzeri is on the verge of being drained of all his individualism -- though Olmi suggests that he still has time to escape his fate. The director attacks the depersonalization of the business world by continuing pointing out how much potential has been sacrified to conformity; for example, the deceased office worker, whom no one noticed in life, is revealed to have been an aspiring writer. Taking a big chance, Olmi allowed his amateur cast to do their own post-dubbing, rather than hiring professionals to dub in their voices. Il Posto is within the realm of neorealism, but with a tad more humor than one finds in other Italian films of that ilk. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi