Italiani

A warm day in August in the mid 60s. A train leaves Palermo station and begins its long journey to Milan. The Salemi family are on board, one of hundreds of thousands of Italian families from the south who left their homes during the 60s to seek happiness in the industrial north. Few knew what to expect, few could have imagined how different life would be, that many would end up in miserable conditions in the suburbs of Milan. Two young men pay assiduous attention to Salemi's seventeen-year-old daughter. I n the next compartment a priest is grappling with his emotions when he has to take care of a pregnant, beautiful woman from Calabria. In the first class carriage a romance is taking place and in the sleeping-car the thirteen-year-old Edoardo has just discovered that his father, an unscrupulous business man, has taken his mistress along on the train. Carmelo is also onboard, a young man who is obsessed with the world of film and who wants to become an actor ... They have great hopes for the future but this does not overcome their obvious worry. On the ferry over to the mainland, few dare go up onto the deck, afraid that it might be the last time they will see their beloved and hated Sicily. Suddenly a train passes. A different train, a modern train. Events are transported into the 80s and onboard, on their way back to Sicily, are a few of the people who had twenty years earlier made the journey in the opposite direction. What happened to them? Why did some succeed while others did not? A man is shouting into a mobile telephone, a bishop is lost in his thoughts, a married couple are arguing and the serious conductor reluctantly presses the switch on the electric espresso machine to serve a cup of coffee to a young lady with a pearl necklace. But what really happened? The episodes switch again, and with a cut we find ourselves back in the 60s. Director Maurizio Ponzi has been making films since the 60s and is an established name in the world of Italian cinema. His latest film, Italiani, is a gem and the cast includes many well-known faces. Ponzi has skillfully captured the mixture of nostalgia and joie de vivre, the fateful atmosphere and dreams of a better life, and the Italians' beautiful jargon, they are experts in the art of giving obvious politeness as much space as humour. J R