CInquant years ago, in 1975, he left theaters Fantozzi, The film that would have started one of the most loved and long -lived sagas of Italian cinema. The film directed by Luciano Salce – Today on Rete 4 at 16.03 and in the cinema in a restored versionas well as on Netflix – he transformed the most unfortunate accountant in Italy into an icon of our culture, making his misadventures, his jokes and his unmistakable mimicry immortal. But Fantozzi It’s not just a slapstick comedy. Because it is also a ferocious satire of Italian societya bitter portrait of the world of work and small-bourgeois conformism which, after half a century, It remains surprisingly current.
Fantozzithe plot of the first film of the accountant’s saga
The plot of Fantozzi It is simple, but effective: we follow the (dis) adventures of the accountant Ugo Fantozzi, employed at the megaditta, grappling with an alienating working environment, ruthless garments and servile colleagues. His life is a continuous humiliation. In the office it is a faces without face, harassing from the superiors and forced to rituals of grotesque subjection; At home he is a prisoner of a squalid routine, between a bad and petulant wife and a monstrous -looking daughter. Even its rare moments of evasion, such as holidays or evenings with friends, turn into surreal disasters.
The strength of the film lies precisely in its ability to mix an irresistible physical comedy with a ferocious social criticism. Behind the gag there is a merciless portrait of the Italian company of the 70s: a working world dominated by rigid hierarchies, in which the garments are untouchable divinities and the employees passively accept every abuse in order to maintain the place. Fantozzi embodies the average Italian, too cowardly to rebel but quite conscious to realize his own misery.
Pliny Fernando and Paolo Villaggio. (Cineteca di Bologna).
The 50 years of the Accountant Ugo
What distinguishes Fantozzi From many other comedies of the time it is the absolute impossibility of redemption of the protagonist. Unlike other characters in Italian cinema, who at least try to rebel, Fantozzi is condemned to always lose. All his action, however well -being, he turns against him. From the famous scene of the battleship Kotiomkin (“A crazy shit!”) To the disastrous soccer match with the megadirector, the result is always the same. Humiliation and defeat.
This element brings him closer to the great tradition of the most bitter Italian comedy, that of Monicelli and Risi, where laughter is always accompanied by a fund of melancholy. Fantozzi It is not just a comic film, it is also a ruthless representation of the human condition: frustration, oppression, the desire to emerge and the impossibility of doing it.
Fifty years after his release, he continues to make people laugh and reflect. His protagonist, with his eternal defeat, his awkwardness and his resignation, is still the mirror of many Italians. Perhaps because, after all, we all have some Fantozzi inside: victims of a system that crushes us, but always ready to laugh at our misfortunes.
The grotesque and social criticism
One of the most distinctive elements of the film is his surreal and grotesque style. Reality is deformed paradoxically, transforming the newspaper into a Kafkian nightmare: Fantozzi’s home-home journey becomes an Odyssey made of bundle buses and impossible runs; His garments are mythological figuresinaccessible, wrapped in a divine aura; His destiny is marked by the presence of the famous “Nuvola di Fantozzi”, which persecutes him everywhere.
These elements create a unique narrative universe, in which comedy was born from the absurdity of situations and from the resignation of the protagonist. But in addition to the surreal dimension, the film is also a reflection on the Italian society of the time, and beyond.
Paolo Villaggio. (Cineteca di Bologna).
The megaditta is the symbol of an overwhelming work systemin which power is exercised arbitraryly and servility is the only way to survive. Still, even the middle class does not come out well: Fantozzi and his colleagues accept every injustice without ever trying a real rebellion, at most they have exhausted in private with some subdued insults. It is a portrait that, despite its comic exasperation, is still current: just look around to recognize the same mechanisms as then.
The immortal jokes of Fantozzi
If Fantozzi entered the collective imagination, the merit is also of his jokes, many of which have become real ways of saying. In addition to the aforementioned armored Kotiomkin, Impossible not to remember “How human is!“Aimed at the megadirector in an extreme attempt of attitude, or”It is said Pòltrona Frau“In the scene in which Fantozzi tries to give himself a tone of superiority, instead revealing his eternal submission.
Phrases remained in common language because in a nutshell the essence of the character and the world that surrounds him: a universe of frustration, hypocrisy and small vendettas.
Paolo Villaggio. (Cineteca di Bologna)
Paolo Villaggio beyond Fantozzi
If Fantozzi has become a phenomenon of costume, it is mainly thanks to the genius of Paolo Villaggio. Actor, writer and satirical author, Village has been able to give life to a character capable of embodying the mediocrity and defeat of the middle Italiantransforming them into art. But his career did not stop at the most famous accountant in Italy.
Village worked with directors of the caliber of Fellini (The voice of the moon), Ermanno Olmi (The secret of the old forest) and Mario Monicelli (Dear fucking friends), showing that he is much more than a simple comedian. His talent was also expressed in writing: Fantozzi’s books are still a masterpiece of black humor and social criticism.
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