Ermanno Olmi

Ermanno Olmi’s PROFESSION OF ARMS adds significantly to the reputation of one of the most distinctive Italian filmmakers of the post-war period. Olmi established his career with a number of beautifully observed studies of ordinary people, culminating in his winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes for “‘L’albero degli zoccoli’ The Tree of Wooden Clogs” in 1978. His subsequent work focused on historical subjects, leading to this magnificent film, one of the best Italian productions in years.Read More »

Quote:
As celebrated Italian director Ermanno Olmi’s self-declared final work, the feature 100 Nails (AKA Centochiodi, 2007) attempts to weave a narrative around a contemporary figure who harbors the humanity of Christ. In a startling prologue, the overseer of an ancient library screams out in horror and summons the cops when he discovers that some degenerate has nailed 100 rare manuscripts to the floor with giant railroad spikes, comparable to the ones used to nail Jesus to the cross. Read More »

Bursting with big dreams and plans, an Italian teen goes to Milan to work in a big impersonal corporate office, where he becomes disillusioned and drained of all his individualism.Read More »

Criterion” wrote:
Olmi’s 1967 short about a young boy’s first loveRead More »

In the industrial North, Giovanni is a skilled factory worker offered a promotion if he’ll go to Sicily for 18 months to assist in a new department. His impending absence strains his already nearly wordless relationship with Liliana, his fiancée. They meet regularly at a dance hall and sometimes go riding on his motorcycle. We watch him arrive in Sicily, walk the town, live in a hotel, find lodgings, work, and participate in local events. It’s a solitary, melancholy life. In his mind’s eye he thinks about Liliana. He hasn’t been entirely faithful. There’s pain and detachment in her eyes. Across this distance, can anything bring about a breakthrough? Do they have a future?Read More »

Synopsis:
‘The bourgeois family Olmi observes here is caught in a process of disintegration that hardly requires the promptings of a languid summer’s minor crisis. A motorcycle crash, a business reorganisation seminar and a childbirth represent the unlikely-seeming dramatic punctuation in Olmi’s mosaic portrait of minimal domestic communication; while the director himself adopts an uncharacteristically elliptical structure and a rare stridency to capture both the frenetic tail-chasing and tentative adaptations to change which criss-cross the dead institutional centre. If the criticism is muted, it’s because for Olmi, every new circumstance offers at least a new option.’
– Time OutRead More »

This Ecological Fairy Tale, with live actors and talking animals tells the story of a colonel (Paolo Villaggio) who is entrusted with a large estate of woodlands until his schoolboy nephew comes of age. Disregarding local tradition and the practice of his esteemed deceased brother, the military man decides to selectively cut the old growth timber. He is confronted with the protestations of the tree spirits (Giulio Brogi) and the local townsfolk, to no avail. Over their objection he releases the unpredictable wind from the cave to which it has been confined, and even wishes for the early demise of his nephew so he can own the woods outright. But he comes to value human contact more, starts to come to terms with most of the spirits, and reverses some plots to get rid of his nephew. A bit like a live action Hayan Miyazaki tale such as Princess Mononoke, but not so violent.Read More »

Quote:
When young Domenico (Sandro Panseri) ventures from the small village of Meda to Milan in search of employment, he finds himself on the bottom rung of the bureaucratic ladder in a huge, faceless company. The prospects are daunting, but Domenico finds reason for hope in the fetching Antonietta (Loredana Detto). A tender coming-of-age story and a sharp observation of dehumanizing corporate enterprise, Ermanno Olmi’s Il posto is a touching and hilarious tale of one young man’s stumbling entrance into the perils of modern adulthood.Read More »

Synopsis
A train travels across Italy toward Rome. On board is a professor who daydreams a conversation with a love that never was, a family of Albanian refugees who switch trains and steal a ticket, three brash Scottish soccer fans en route to a match, and a complaining widow traveling to a memorial service for her late husband who’s accompanied by a community-service volunteer who’s assisting her. Interactions among these Europeans turn on class and nationalism, courtesy and rudeness, and opportunities for kindness.Read More »