Domenico is an innocent boy from a small town outside Milan who goes to the city to get himself a "job for life" with a corporation there. He submits to absurd tests to "qualify," gets a job as a messenger, and eventually achieves his real goal--a desk job as a clerk--upon the death of some poor sap who'd performed his own "job for life" by doing the endless round of routine tasks that clerks in this company seem to do.
Along the way, Domenico meets and has a crush on (no other wording quite works) another new employee, a girl named Antonietta. She likes him, and one of the high moments in this incredibly quiet film is when director Olmi gives us a closeup of their holding hands. The sweetness of this moment is hard to describe.
Once Domenico is hired, we are introduced to his co-workers and their alternately depressing and comic daily grind. There is an abrupt shift to a montage showing their lives away from the office, the lives of obscure people. One of these is the clerk who eventually dies and whose place is taken by Domenico. We learn that this clerk has been working on a novel. One gathers that he has been doing it for a long time, snatching moment for it during office hours.
The great climactic sequence is that of the New Years Eve party sponsored by the company for its employees. Domenico is one of the first to arrive, finding a nearly empty institutional room with mostly empty tables. As other people arrive, he can be seen glancing hopefully to see if Antonietta is among them. But she never comes, perhaps kept from attending by her mother. In the meantime, the party atmosphere builds. A rather ordinary-looking young woman at a nearby table sits looking wistfully and enviously at other women, who have been asked to dance. Nobody asks her. But she proves to be a lively sort, finally coaxing Domenico onto the dance floor. Soon Domenico is caught up by the excitement of the party, with its lively music, and this is how he greets the new year.
Next day, back to work, and this is when Domenico learns of his "elevation" to clerk. We watch as the other clerks scramble to move one desk up in the row to fill the place until now held by the clerk who just died. We watch as someone in charge empties that clerk's desk. He finds a manuscript. That, along with the clerk's personal possessions, is wrapped up in paper, and the bundle is tossed onto the top of a high cabinet.
Domenico, now sitting in the back-row desk as a new clerk, stares into the future as we listen to the monotonous sound of the office mimeograph.
A wonderful movie, filled with sharply observed detail. Never does Olmi look down on his characters. We see the futility of their lives, but we also share in their humanity.
Along the way, Domenico meets and has a crush on (no other wording quite works) another new employee, a girl named Antonietta. She likes him, and one of the high moments in this incredibly quiet film is when director Olmi gives us a closeup of their holding hands. The sweetness of this moment is hard to describe.
Once Domenico is hired, we are introduced to his co-workers and their alternately depressing and comic daily grind. There is an abrupt shift to a montage showing their lives away from the office, the lives of obscure people. One of these is the clerk who eventually dies and whose place is taken by Domenico. We learn that this clerk has been working on a novel. One gathers that he has been doing it for a long time, snatching moment for it during office hours.
The great climactic sequence is that of the New Years Eve party sponsored by the company for its employees. Domenico is one of the first to arrive, finding a nearly empty institutional room with mostly empty tables. As other people arrive, he can be seen glancing hopefully to see if Antonietta is among them. But she never comes, perhaps kept from attending by her mother. In the meantime, the party atmosphere builds. A rather ordinary-looking young woman at a nearby table sits looking wistfully and enviously at other women, who have been asked to dance. Nobody asks her. But she proves to be a lively sort, finally coaxing Domenico onto the dance floor. Soon Domenico is caught up by the excitement of the party, with its lively music, and this is how he greets the new year.
Next day, back to work, and this is when Domenico learns of his "elevation" to clerk. We watch as the other clerks scramble to move one desk up in the row to fill the place until now held by the clerk who just died. We watch as someone in charge empties that clerk's desk. He finds a manuscript. That, along with the clerk's personal possessions, is wrapped up in paper, and the bundle is tossed onto the top of a high cabinet.
Domenico, now sitting in the back-row desk as a new clerk, stares into the future as we listen to the monotonous sound of the office mimeograph.
A wonderful movie, filled with sharply observed detail. Never does Olmi look down on his characters. We see the futility of their lives, but we also share in their humanity.