Mario Monicelli
I picari

I want to critique the Picari.

This is a film of the type: let's adapt books that are suitable for adaptations. We write a nice screenplay, hire some of our local cinema stars, and hit the jackpot at the box office. Let's take Manfredi, Gassman, Montesano, Bisio, Giannini, and De Sio and have a couple of laughs…

It's not working. I'll try again.

Actually, no, I'm kidding, let's talk seriously, if possible.

This is an Italian-style comedy, not a comic film. We laugh and joke so we don’t cry. These are laughs, but the aftertaste is bitter: life is a sad business.

Let's put some order.

It is 1987. Mario Monicelli is now an adult, an elder. We are around the fiftieth year of his career and, with an average of at least one movie a year, inspiration cannot always be at its peak.

He decides, together with his group of screenwriters (Leo Benvenuti and the others), to set the new film in 16th century Spain, drawing heavily from the novels of the picaresque genre which achieved extraordinary success in the second half of the century. They take the two most famous characters of the genre, Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzman de Alfarache, make them meet, and create a good screenplay.

The two protagonists are very similar: the picaros are vagabonds and ragamuffins, rascals and generous. Young people who make the spirit of adventure their religion, skirting delinquency, engaging only occasionally in precarious jobs, solely to solve the major problem of hunger and a roof to sleep under. Their adventures are roughly interchangeable.

Around the mid-16th century, at the time of Lazarillo de Tormes, talking about the picaros was a way to observe Spanish society seen from below; half a century later, with Guzman de Alfarache, and even more so in our time, it has become mostly a way to witness amusing pranks and deceits, even if within a bitter reality.

Lazarillo (Montesano) and Guzman (Giannini) meet when, as galley slaves, they work as oarsmen on a Spanish ship.

They tell each other about their past.

Lazaro was born in Salamanca to a penniless and… multiracial family. In short, to make ends meet, his mother works as a prostitute.

One day, when Lazaro is old enough, in exchange for carnal pleasures, a blind old man (Manfredi) agrees to take him in.

“The experience he will have with me around the world,

is worth more than a mountain of golden zecchini.

And I hope he will know how to repay me for every petita.”

Precisely so. The education will consist of deceits, pranks, and cons at the expense of everyone: young ladies and cardinals, nobles and madams. And Lazaro will be a victim, a sidekick, and finally, as an adult, the author: thus he frees himself from the blind man by making him plunge into a ravine.

Guzman, on the other hand, is the son of a dice player, sentenced to hanging as a cheat: he inherits the tools of the trade from his father. However, a priest takes care of the little orphan and advises him as a pedagogical assistant to the young marquis in a noble family of marquises. The pedagogical assistant is none other than the one who takes the beatings from the pedagogue (Hendel) for the foolishness committed by the young scion.

Returning to the present, during a galley uprising, the two betray the rebels, but while they are about to succumb, guided by friendly fortune, they still manage to save themselves.

They separate to meet again, separate again, and meet once more.

The narrative structure is cyclical.

The adventures could potentially go on forever. So they go on for a while until the end arrives, leaving the viewer with a slightly bitter taste.

Among these adventures, the one where Guzman works as a personal valet, servant, and groom of a penniless hidalgo, played by Vittorio Gassman, stands out.

The melancholic events of this character are memorable and alone justify the film's production.

Note:

Obviously, in this compendium of 16th-17th century Spanish literature, Don Quixote and Sancho will also make a small cameo.

We are Picari

Dalla-Malavasi

We are Picari
Most of all, we are free
Like gypsies
Not very stable, birds among the trees or mice among the furniture
We are nomads
With our limits
Killed by debts
We are different from our peers, we are masters of impossible dreams
We are Picari
And like dogs, we talk to the Moon (hear us)
Poor blind men, we sell fortune
Hear us, hear us, hear us
Give us more
We are Picari
Perverse lunatics
Invisible ghosts
In frantic worlds
We'd give an eye for a bit of fortune (hear us)
Life is a bauble, a well, a moon
Hear us, hear us, hear us
Give us more

steal
eat
sleep

Sometimes the moon - eh, sometimes.