Thoughts on 5 films by Elio Petri
Elio Petri was a bleak political satirist who from the very beginning of his career took poisonous shots at wealth, power and labour relations. His comedic tragedies may occasionally make you smile, but sadness, uncertainty and terror lurk beneath. At his most extreme, such as his Best Foreign Picture-winning Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and Todo Modo, the "comedy" only exists as a grimace of absurdity in what would be far better described as psychological horror.
Dying of Cancer at the young age of 53, Petri was only active in two decades but left behind 11 solo features, most of which starred either Gian Maria Volonte or Marcello Mastroianni, with the films with the latter often affording themselves far more winks.
Before this run I had only seen 5 of his films, that number is now doubled, with his final and generally least talked about feature being the only one remaining. I always liked Petri, but I may not have been entirely ready for his darkness and political subtext, and most films simply ended up as films I liked rather than loved. With this batch of films, that was flipped, with 4/5 going down as great, and the 5th certainly not being far behind. It makes me quite excited to see what I will think when I revisit his biggest efforts.
I giorni contati / His Days Are Numbered (1962)
His Days Are Numbered is a grim, desperate and visceral depiction of utter existential crisis in a way that you will not have seen before, or since. It is both realistic and expressionistic as we follow the days of a middle-aged plumber after he decides to leave work behind. The cause? Seeing a man travelling on the same tram as him sitting there lifeless, dead from a heart attack, hands still on his morning paper. The familiar idea: it could have been him. It could have been you. What are you doing with your life? Why do you work to live?
The opening sequence itself is as simple and effective as it is involving. We start by seeing our protagonist's face, with no information about his as he is travelling on the tram. We pan to other passengers until we slowly get to the dead man, track the commotion and response, until we are outside the tram, passengers being ushered out. Our protagonist starts to leave but turns back, attempting to get through the crowd gathered up to see the body, arriving at the window just as the police cover the dead man's face behind a newspaper - and then, bewilderment and sorrow.
We will get many sequences like this, sparse, emotive, filled with dream and sorrow, some more unnerving, some ending on more comical notes, but the comedy is always undercut by terror. You will likely never laugh. Even the early days after reaching his decision, regardless of how happy and proselytizing our lead is in his new beliefs, it rather reeks of desperation and doom. We know he does not have much. We know it can not last. People tell him so. He knows it himself. What is he willing to do to keep saying without a job, and make the money stretch. Begging? Crimes? Who can help him, and is there any hope?
His Days Are Numbered does certainly not offer any solutions, but in a manner that is quite clearly Petri's strength, it sows seeds of discontent and doubt. It asks why people must work as hard as they do and miss their lives. It questions the nature of work itself in ways we rarely consider. Lastly, it has us look at our own lives and see how our situations fit into it all.
Too downbeat to be described as an emotional rollercoaster, it can, all the same, be argued to be a pitch dark "comedy" in the category that can turn a smile into a frown. The situations our protagonist gets himself into as the film goes on may be created slightly more for darkly comedic effect than resonance, and perhaps the film would have been even stronger if it had embraced itself more thoroughly as an existentialist drama, but as it stands I would certainly say it has a claim to being one of Petri's finest hours.
Il maestro di Vigevano / The Teacher from Vigevano (1963)
The Teacher from Vigevano takes the same oppressive experience of His Days Are Numbered, but brings in far more comedy, to the point that you may indeed smile rather than frown this time around - though regardless, the film is still filled with misery from beginning to end.
Alberto Sordi plays a timid teacher, clinging on to patriarchal beliefs of being the sole breadwinner and having some kind of authority, while frailing under his principal, along with all his colleagues, in utterly pathetic and sycophantic splendour. The teacher's salary is so small that he and his family can hardly survive, but he is clinging onto his principle and ideas of being above "the workers" based on career path and position alone.
The film's comedy and melancholy comes from the degrees to which he degrades himself, as well as his clashes with his wife who eventually goes to work and becomes industrious, with all the sense of failure and suspicion this builds up as he bumbles and missteps on repeat.
In terms of style and comedy this could be argued to be closer to other darkly comedic Italian films from the same period, such as those of Pietro Germi, but the big difference really lays in the melancholy and utterly depressing atmosphere. While it certainly has fun with Italian society, jealousy, etc. it is also far more concerned with the utter poverty of the teachers, trickles in union ideas, and wishes to leave us with a tragi-comic aftertaste.
La decima vittima / The 10th Victim (1965)
The 10th Victim feels like an utter misnomer in Petri's filmography, jumping straight into what is essentially an all-out crazy action sci-fi comedy in glorious colours. Yes, it is certainly still a darkly comedic satire, but any feeling of oppressive bleakness is washed away as Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress get down for some slick and sexy murder games. This is a true child of the 60s, that hits on consumerist and societal critique while two, again, sexy people, try to kill each other in a double and triple-cross play style fashion.
The plot is simple: Futuristic murder games. The core idea is essentially a mixture of The Purge and Battle Royale/Hunger Games, but only with willing participants. Each applicant agrees to take part in 10 hunts, 5 where they are the victim and 5 where they are the hunter. Why? Peace! If Hitler had the freedom to kill or be killed he would never have launched WW2 states an announcement. All the blood-thirsty and bored people can now get their kicks elsewhere, with most simply dying away.
Petri really lives it up with the futuristic style, embracing the technology and outfits of the nearish dystopian future. Any sense of an oppressive atmosphere is removed, as the dark comedy is played up - including bans of murders in restaurants - with the Americans being frustrated about all the rules Europeans place on the game. You have likely seen a few films of this kind already, with the mini-cult classic The Million Dollar Game likely being the closest in atmosphere, rather than Watkins' Punishment Park (though his more playful The Gladiators come closer).
It is impressive just how well Petri does with this kind of scope and style, as well as how he is, following his previous films looking at work and submission, can take his critical focus elsewhere. Will anyone really think too much about Andress signing up with a TV crew to film her 10th kill? Probably not, but it is there for those who want it. The sly, amoral/immoral characters, the behaviour of people around them and the utter slyness all come together into one of the most fun films of its kind. Quite remarkable for a director whose comedies generally aim to depress you.
A ciascuno il suo / We Still Kill the Old Way (1967)
We Still Kill the Old Way is interestingly far more of a traditional whodunit than you would expect from Elio Petri. It is often sparse in expression, drifting over characters rather than fully establishing them, but still gets us into the mystery of who is sending the death threats and what the real motive might be - as Gian Maria Volonté's disparaging left-wing professor takes up the mantle of amateur detective in his small village. This may feel like a comical set-up, and you may expect more winks, but no, the atmosphere and tone remain serious and increasingly paranoid and unsure.
Yes, you can feel that the film carries a slight bleak smirk, especially when we get to the ending itself, but this is the only reminder that Petri is first and foremost a satirist. We follow the clues, study the Sicilian village, and of course, power comes into play - as it so often does with the works of this man. As a blunt genre effort with auteurist aesthetics, it is thoroughly effective, and leaves little, beyond perhaps a bit more suspense to be desired, but certain moments still hit hard. A great effort of slightly less grandeur than his bigger efforts, but also one I can see Petri dissenters getting behind.
Todo Modo / One Way or Another (1976)
Todo Modo is without a doubt Elio Petri's most oppressive, bleak and unnerving satire, seething in claustrophobia and just ... hate. This is a moment of Petri's career that seems filled with fury, and while satirical in nature, this depiction of Italy's powerful at a religious retreat where they start to be picked off one by one, while the rituals continue, feels closer to Bunuel attempting a horror film. Perhaps, a bleaker and more politically overt version of the already politically loaded Exterminating Angel - as the powerful men just can't leave.
Gian Maria Volonté plays M., a quiet, pious(?), always apologizing political power broker, who to Italians of the time should be immediately identifiable as the then Christian Democrat Prime Minister Aldo Moro. He is an almost pathetic figure, coupled with a long list of dirty dealings, including with the priest leading it all, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who indeed seems close to being sent to jail for unknown crimes.
The film is a display of rituals, lacking contexts of formalities, courtesies, dealings - faith, suspicion and fish in a bottle. As the film nears its end, even the police investigator trying to uncover the truth appears to be despised - as is every other character. Petri makes them look frail, contemptuous and ridiculous and takes pleasure in seeing the powerful squirm in fear.
Do not expect a slasher or a film of suspense. You may be curious as to who the culprit may be, and indeed if a conspiracy may be at foot, but the grim satirical knife is what is slicing up its victims. Corpses are seen, but the deaths are not, at least not up close. This is all about the dread, the despair and a calculated attack/declaration of hate. A contemporary flipside of Salo (made 1 year prior), without faeces and kidnapped children, with its main purpose being to show the Christian Democrats and businessmen of power as being as depraved as they are pathetic.
! I didn't know you had a family tie to classic filmmaking.
