Gennaro Nunziante
Quo vado?

The film begins with two guys, a white guy – Checco Zalone – and a black unlucky driver. Suddenly, the two must confront a tribe of savages, or rather, of locals. At this point, as the situation becomes worrying for the two, Checco Zalone, takes a seat on a providential wooden stump and starts to narrate. Narrate, narrate, the film leads towards a philanthropically correct finale, just to paraphrase the omnipresent 'politically correct'. What's between the start of Zalone's tale and the tear-jerking pre-finale with an (anything-can-happen) ending at risk of accusations by animal rights activists? It’s easy to say: in between is the misadventure of an employee.

Obviously, if someone wants to know the plot in detail, they have other web-based opportunities to do so. In this context, it’s interesting to reflect on the characters and the themes that dwell within this film. Meanwhile, Checco Zalone, known in real life as Luca Pasquale Medici. If you’re accustomed to frequenting Puglia, you'll know that in every small town of this beautiful region from the former Magna Grecia, there’s a Checco Zalone. Obviously, this takes nothing away from the actor: luck, among the crowd of various ‘similcheccozalone,’ chose him and pulled him out of anonymity. Good for him. The problem arises, however, with the success that the people are decreeing for “Quo vado?”

So, what's funny about the theme of the 'secure job'?

I don’t have a secure job and I couldn't live with people who count the years until retirement, Tfr, or the annoying office manager. Having said that, if the secure job was a solution that the State could handle, why not? Considering that – shame on you, hypocrites! – those who have been suggesting its elimination for a long time are precisely those who have that damn secure job very fixed! Politicians and the like. Okay, there are employees who don't want to do anything: the law of large numbers always includes a few bad apples. And so? Better the Apulian 'gangmaster system' that treats the worker like an animal? Better the accountants who pay 300 euros a month, in civilized Puglia, to accountants? Better to consider them, those lacking in work ethic, within the realm of physiological events, I say. Or does someone want to shoot them? If so, come forward and do it yourself. Or perhaps re-educate them, which is better for everyone. Those who want to shoot them and those allergic to work.

The laughing Italians, hidden in the darkness of cinemas – in the north and the south – remind me of those idiots who, in the authoritative words of Umberto Eco, infest the web hidden under a nickname: from under that umbrella, they write superficial judgments and stupid comments on everything, books, films, music. Those people who laugh in cinemas don't understand that they themselves are the protagonist that makes one laugh: one should leave the theater afflicted by how they are treated by the Power that – it's him allowing you to think it's the ‘others’ who are the protagonists to mock in movies – wins once again.

Well, let's wrap up. Yesterday, on Virus conducted by Porro, Giulio Base, Lino Banfi, and a Vanzina brother collectively raised Checco Zalone to the heights of the greats of cinema of all time. Embarrassing, damn it! And they're not the only ones. Not for Checco Zalone who is very likeable, but for the elite who have always preached high Culture. Anyway, “Quo vado?” is a comically sad film.