2016 Tarkovsky Prize 3rd Place: Owen Reese

IL POSTO & AMARCORD : Two Views of Growing Up by Owen Reese (16) 
2016 Tarkovsky Prize, 3rd Place

This past year I’ve been exposed to a whole world of foreign cinema I’d never even known existed, and during that time, I’ve fallen in love with a number of Italian films, particularly Il Posto and Amarcord. Both films depict the lives of teenaged boys coming of age in Italy, and both were made in roughly similar time periods (Amarcord in 1973, Il Posto in 1961).

However, despite these similarities, the films couldn’t be more different. Both affected me deeply, but in totally different ways. Il Posto takes place in a crowded, fast-moving city (Milan), but is rather quiet, whereas Amarcord is set in a small, simple town that couldn’t get more lively. The characters inhabiting Il Posto are all sad, helpless, vulnerable people who both literally and figuratively don’t have much color to them, as the film was shot in black and white and none of them have any noticeable spunk. On the other hand Amarcord, which made in full, bright color, has characters that never rest their outrageous and animated personas. My question is, which one is a better representation of the world as I’ve known it?

The obvious answer would be Il Posto because it’s more down to earth and less exaggerated. The real human experience, however, isn’t always as uninteresting as Il Posto makes it seem. The neorealistic style isn’t always realistic, however ironic that sounds. So which is it? Which of these films can be viewed as a more trustworthy image of young life as I’ve known it?

It seems like the protagonists of the two films were almost made to be opposites. In Il Posto, Domenico, the “hero” (it’s hard to describe someone so mild as a hero) is rather introverted and awkward. He doesn’t seem to know what to do in the situations he’s put in, for example the cafe scene, where he wasn’t sure where he was supposed to drink his coffee, so he watched others for reference. He never has too much energy on screen either.

Meanwhile, way over in Amarcord, Titta, the lively teenage protagonist, is extremely extroverted, though we don’t see him as much because he’s often overshadowed by other characters. Amarcord is just littered with crazy personalities, like Gradisca, the village beauty with whom everybody’s in love, Aurelio, the crazy father who’s the only non-fascist in town, and the tobacconist, who shares a particularly unusual scene with Titta.

In Il Posto, Domenico is the only one who has much screen time. Everyone seems to have an important role in a small part of the story, but then gets forgotten in not too much time. This is done to detach the audience from any other characters and make the whole film as depressing and lonely as it was meant to be. Is that like real life? Is everything really that bleak? Or is the world filled with colorful characters like in Amarcord?

In the suburbs where I’ve lived my life, most of the people I meet feel like those in Il Posto: mediocre and unspecial, even if that’s a harsh statement. I see people that don’t seem to have too much passion for life or many interesting traits, people who only care about getting good grades in school to be financially successful later in life. The characters in Il Posto are all held down, forced by circumstance to be soulless, only interested in having a good job, even if it means a long, unchanging life.

Most of the time when I get to know someone, however, they suddenly become just as interesting as any character in Amarcord. I once knew someone who seemed hopelessly boring, like there was nothing interesting going on inside his head. He never talked with enthusiasm or interest about things, as if everything was sort of just bland to him. Over time, though, I learned that he was great at conversation, and had a very unique personality. He just took some getting to know. Only a few people that I truly know are really boring like in the world of Il Posto. Maybe the reason why everyone in that film is how they are is because we, as an audience, never get past the “awkward small talk” stage with them, whereas in Amarcord, we get to see their true colors right off the bat. I think this was intended to point out the way big, industrial companies force the working class people to throw away their heart and soul just to stay afloat in a tough economy. That’s not the whole world, though. There are many other lenses through which a person can look at life, and those are what we see through in Amarcord.

Let’s take a moment to think about the setting. Amarcord takes place in a small, isolated village, where one might expect things to be slow and simple. It is quite to the contrary, though, as Amarcord is a very eventful film full of spectacle and wonder, the kind of vibe I’ve known cities to give off in films I’d previously seen. Il Posto, which is actually set in a city, has a crowded and bustling atmosphere, though the action is very slow and quiet. The black-and-white color scheme really enhances the mood of mediocrity and simplicity. It’s unusual that a vast, complex city holds a simple and small story, and the small, simple town holds a vast and complex story. You would think the tone of a movie would correlate with the setting, but in these two films it does the opposite.

These unusual films show two entirely different cinematic worlds that send opposing messages about what it’s like to grow up. I, personally have lived in a place that feels like Il Posto most of the time. Where I’ve grown up, everything is part of a rather small circle. The advancements in technology I’ve been lucky enough to live with definitely expand that circle and help everyone communicate with a larger world, but only on a digital plane. When I’m really living, experiencing life without using the internet, things do feel small, and the large amounts of people that I see and hear every day minding their own business are sort of just background noise to a contained little story that is my life. Still, there are plenty of characters that I’m surrounded by every day, people that have real significance and add big side stories into my life, making the circle larger.

Although I originally wanted to ask which film was a better representation of the world I’ve grown up in, I can’t. Similarities can be drawn from both Amarcord and Il Posto. Every aspect of each film is at least somewhat like what I know about the real human experience, it’s just that they show opposite sides of that experience. Life isn’t always as solitary and grim as Il Posto makes it out to be, but it also isn’t constantly as bright and exciting as Amarcord shows it. They’re different stories of different people living on the same planet from different perspectives. It’s not that one can be more correct than the other, they’re both correct and incorrect in their own ways, two tales that tell truths about my part of humanity.