•
Rating: Hello everyone, today we talk about a movie, but, first of all, about a city that probably represents a category of the spirit: Turin.
This, in my opinion, is Turin: straight roads, wide avenues, Savoyard residences and Art Nouveau villas, industrial suburbs that suddenly rise among meadows, hunting reserves reminiscent of ancient splendors, a bypass that gets lost who knows where, Fiat prototypes being tested, the cinema museum and the spire of the Mole, used book markets around Piazza Castello and Balòn, slightly bewildered Egyptian mummies, chocolate and Galleria Subalpina, stadium and suburban fields, cycle paths and dealers.
If that is Turin, these are the people of Turin: true Turin natives, first, second, and third-generation southern immigrants, post-flood Rovigo immigrants and post-earthquake Friulian immigrants, Maghrebini from Turin, first, second, and third-generation Pakistani from Turin, and, ça va sans dire, the Turin breadsticks with which I dine at the pizzeria and also the grissini rubbattà. Walking around Turin, you know you might see Totò Merumeni and the monkey Macachita, Salvo the worker, the architect Garrone on the day he died, Giustina the sales assistant, Primo Levi and Franco Lucentini pondering on their doorstep, Rashid the rose seller, the detective Arrosio and faith in statistics, Carmelo the out-of-town student, Erminio Macario and two showgirls, Mariano the electronic technician and his nephew visiting for three days, Mrs. Tabusso and her bag, two drunk jazz musicians in Piazza CLN... besides a series of characters a bit real and a bit fictional like those who - having exhausted these premises - we find in the film that I am reviewing today, as usual with you and, as usual, for you, in yet another stop on our journey into the rediscovery of 'minor' Italian cinema.
Directed by the not-too-famous Francesco Massaro, "Al bar dello sport" ('83) is based on the solid screenplay by Franco Ferrini, Enrico Vanzina, and Enrico Oldoini, who, in certain aspects, move to the Savoyard capital, and its mixes, atmospheres so dear to Steno's old masterpiece, "Febbre da cavallo", here too staging the small follies and great hopes that, in the industrial Italy of the early '80s, were correlated to the mythical football pool card, now pure modern memorabilia replaced by online betting.
The film tells us the adventures of Lino, a Pugliese immigrant, played by Lino Banfi, who, thanks to the fortuitous help of the deaf-mute scullery boy Parola (Jerry Calà) manages to score the mythical 13 by betting on Juventus being defeated at home by Catania, thus triggering a series of mishaps and misunderstandings among the friends and patrons of the bar where the card was played, in his own family and in the eternal girlfriend - the bar's cashier - Rossana (Mara Venier), in search of the elusive new billionaire. Various adventures will lead Lino and Parola up to Montecarlo, where...
Supported by a good rhythm and an excellent Banfi, who gives his best in the role of the broke southerner who cannot adapt to northern society and desires an eternal escape to a hypothetical Elsewhere, the film should be remembered, in my opinion, especially for the sociological snapshot of a certain northern suburb typical of the '80s, where characters of various natures and backgrounds, various stories, and various perspectives meet in the mythical sports bar to bet on their future, and on an alternative to the meager present: what comes out is a portrait both poetic and disarming, emphasized by the linguistic gramelot spoken in the nameless corner bar, from the Venetian of the cashier Rossana to the Lombard of the owner of the establishment, passing through the fireworks of the Pugliese Banfi and the Calabrian (a young Sergio Vastano) and Campanian friends. The counterpoint to this dialectal chorus is made by the mute Parola, the only character without a voice/without roots, and not coincidentally the engine that triggers Lino's win itself, urging him to abandon routine towards a different future disengaged from the usual faces, and the usual daily humiliations (employer, loan sharks, treacherous relatives, unbearable nephew) and the frustrating attempts at insertion into a reality that rejects him.
Apart from the possible meanings of the film, "Al bar dello sport" is also remembered for some humorous scenes and the brilliant description of the characters: applause-worthy and characterized by cynical realism, in particular, all the scenes starring Banfi, his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, a typical southern family who, unable to accept themselves for who they are, try to integrate into the north by adopting its accents, customs, ways of being, provoking the anger of Lino himself (who, not very politically correct, calls them remade Moroccans).
No less interesting, as already noted, are the characters of the bar patrons, characters who are sad, solitary, and terminal, searching for redemption in the game and, therefore, in the supreme Chance.
And perhaps it's no coincidence that the game, the fortuitous, the accident are staged here in the superb chessboard of Turin, in the tangle of streets and symbols that, reminiscent of an ancient and lost design, of an ancient and lost rationality: if in the beginning was the Word/Logos, in this film all that remains is Parola, in his absurd and almost existential muteness.
Sorry if today I have been a bit too heavy, overloading with meanings what is, in the end, an Italian comedy of decent make and success - saved by the usual artisans of our cinema (Annabella Schiamone, Enzo Andronico, Dino Cassio, Ennio Antonelli: thank you!) - but when talking about Turin you talk about Turin (neh)... and also your Paolo has his fixations.
Verbally Yours
Il_Paolo
Loading comments slowly
