Castellano e Pipolo
Grandi Magazzini

THE REVIEW

Hello everyone! And welcome back from the holidays. I still have a few days left, although money is starting to run low even for a simple phone call, and I have to resort to creditors of various kinds, but I'm starting to warm up for the autumn with a new foray into the "minor" Italian cinema that I've been exploring with You for months, but, most importantly, for You.

So, let's skip the pleasantries and quickly dive into this "Grandi Magazzini" ('86), a typically 80s ensemble film that, in depicting contemporary Italy (of that time, but also of today, if we think about the massive spread of stores, stockhouses, hypermarkets, and so on peppering every bypass worthy of the name) also offers us unexpected reflections on the fate of Man in the consumer society.

How many times, possibly on a Saturday when we have nothing to do, do we like to indulge in the long corridors or overlapping floors of the stores, captivated by the colors of cans, boxes, clothes at zero price, CDs of Gianni Togni or Mauro Lusini at 3 € (and what emotion to find the old cassettes, for example of the Who, the Clash - Lost in the Supermarket ring any bells? - or Alunni del Sole!), going up and down the escalators, with the fear of getting shoe laces or the dog's ears caught in the last step, like new characters in Escher's labyrinths, seeking the approval of the sales clerk, hoping the anti-theft alarm doesn't go off, or that no one slips compromising goods into our cart?

And how much do we like, in there, to feel completely like everyone else, mixing our buying impulses with the anxiety of not making it to the end of the month, the desire to give our little room a makeover with something different that helps us escape from those four walls, the sensation of buying the unnecessary, which might be discarded even before reaching the parking lot, but then who cares? The "Grande Magazzino" basically takes us back to early childhood, to a preschool stage where our only concern was eating, and in a sense, it makes us forget ourselves, degenerating us into subjects with basic functions only, unaware of our Destiny.

In such a climate, we can truly appreciate the episodes filmed by the never too lamented Castellano and Pipolo (the father of Federico Moccia), all revolving around the idea of consumption and the means (and tricks) through which one comes to consume, in a repetitive and, not surprisingly, almost childish dimension: from the robotic thief Villaggio (who can't get anything right) to the naive security guard Boldi, too pure to be suitable for the role of vigilante, passing through a De Sica who alternates compulsive purchasing of "stuff" with sexual desire (practically mixing the levels), or a Banfi symbolically excluded from the perimeter of the "Grande Magazzino" as unsuitable to consume and reduced to begging, not to mention a Parisi who gets lost in the consumption labyrinth without her contact lenses, which at the time were a status symbol; moreover, let's remember Montesano who becomes the object of desire of the decadent Laura Antonelli only due to a case of mistaken identity, since he's an "affluent" subject, and not for what he "really" is (with a subtle nod to Erich Fromm's well-known theories). Among all, I would highlight two episodes that stand out for their tragicomic significance: a Manfredi at the brink of his career reduced to performing in a commercial, sacrificing his talent on the altar of money; a Pozzetto who, in the best segment of the film, starts as a delivery boy and ends up making a career by practically prostituting himself, essentially selling his body for money, commodifying himself and closing a circle that starts in Childhood, where consumption is a need, and ends in the degeneration of the adult Individual, where consumption is a compensation for what is probably missing.

In summary, a good example of cinema, a classic to be enjoyed in company, and I don't know how much of an (in)voluntary critique it is of the hedonism of the 80s, which becomes more and more perplexing the more you look at it beyond appearances.

Essentially Yours,

Il_Paolo