Lamerica, Amelio's new film, is dedicated to all poor nations whose paupers dream of distant salvation in a mythical America, but either can't afford to leave or, like most Albanians who swarmed to Italy after the dictator's fall, are sent back on the very ships they came on.
- John Simon
- John Simon
The poignancy of director Gianni Amelio’s Lamerica culminates subtly during the closing scene as Partizani, a dangerously overcrowded ship, sails lopsided across the Adriatic Sea, filled with Albanian pilgrims hoping for a better way of life in Italy. While the scene is not unlike one that we Americans could imagine of our ancestors as they made their crossings to America, it differs in its spirit of melancholy and misgiving. One is left to wonder if the weary travelers will ever reach their destination: salvation from oppression.
That journey is one of the many themes found in Lamerica as we watch Gino and his partner, Fiore, attempt to exploit the crumbling Albanian economy – a look at the true nature of globalization – after the country is liberated from 50 years of Communism. By claiming they’ll establish a shoe manufacturing company in Albania, Gino and Fiore intend to reap the subsidies from the Italian government in their dubious humanitarian effort to help Albanians. This first show of deceit is followed by lingering deception throughout the film, as people and actions don’t quite turn out the way one would expect.
In search of a pseudo chairman for the shoe company, Gino and Fiore visit a dark and dilapidated prison where the prisoners remind one of zombies out of an American zombie movie, and discover Spiro Tozai, whom they believe to be Albanian. Turns out, Spiro is actually an Italian prisoner of World War II, Michele Talarico, who has spent the past 50 years in the Albanian prison. A frail, old man, he believes he is 20 and must get back home to his wife and son in Sicily. It’s not that Spiro/Talarico is deceptive, but that Gino and Fiore have managed to fool themselves. Gino, in particular, becomes a mockery of himself, as he is systematically stripped of his car, his business, his nationality, his personal space. On the other hand, Michele, while delusional about which decade he inhabits, becomes more and more certain about his journey and where he needs to be: Lamerica. “We can travel together,” he tells Gino once they reunite on board Partizani. “We’ve both been very unlucky, but we have to keep heart. America’s a big place.”
So we’re back to that precariously crowded ship wondering if it will make its destination, and if it does, will it be forced to turn back? The previous scene offers hope. Children sit around a nighttime fire, waiting for morning to make their passage. A young girl translates into Italian Albanian words being called out: son, husband, bread, song, love, cold, flower, good, hand, apple, shoe, ship, sea. After muttering sea, she smiles.
Awards for Lamerica
1994 European Film Awards - "Best Film"
1994 Venice Film Festival - 4 Awards including "Best Director"
1995 São Paulo International Film Festival - "Critics Award"
1995 David di Donatello: Best Cinematography, Best Score, Best Sound
1995 Nastro d'Argento: Best Director, Best Cinematography
1996 Goya Awards - Best European Film
Some notes on Communism according to Slavenka Drakulic in How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
“Living conditions kill all privacy – or spread it out to the whole community” (p. 183).
“All of a sudden, private space became important, even fashionable in a country where for forty-five years, if not longer, nobody had even thought in these terms” (p. 97).
“Generally speaking, in any communist country there are not many things to throw away. One could even say that a communist household is almost the perfect example of an ecological unit, except that its ecology has a completely different origin: it doesn’t stem for a concern for nature, but from a specific kind of fear for the future” (p. 181).
That journey is one of the many themes found in Lamerica as we watch Gino and his partner, Fiore, attempt to exploit the crumbling Albanian economy – a look at the true nature of globalization – after the country is liberated from 50 years of Communism. By claiming they’ll establish a shoe manufacturing company in Albania, Gino and Fiore intend to reap the subsidies from the Italian government in their dubious humanitarian effort to help Albanians. This first show of deceit is followed by lingering deception throughout the film, as people and actions don’t quite turn out the way one would expect.
In search of a pseudo chairman for the shoe company, Gino and Fiore visit a dark and dilapidated prison where the prisoners remind one of zombies out of an American zombie movie, and discover Spiro Tozai, whom they believe to be Albanian. Turns out, Spiro is actually an Italian prisoner of World War II, Michele Talarico, who has spent the past 50 years in the Albanian prison. A frail, old man, he believes he is 20 and must get back home to his wife and son in Sicily. It’s not that Spiro/Talarico is deceptive, but that Gino and Fiore have managed to fool themselves. Gino, in particular, becomes a mockery of himself, as he is systematically stripped of his car, his business, his nationality, his personal space. On the other hand, Michele, while delusional about which decade he inhabits, becomes more and more certain about his journey and where he needs to be: Lamerica. “We can travel together,” he tells Gino once they reunite on board Partizani. “We’ve both been very unlucky, but we have to keep heart. America’s a big place.”
So we’re back to that precariously crowded ship wondering if it will make its destination, and if it does, will it be forced to turn back? The previous scene offers hope. Children sit around a nighttime fire, waiting for morning to make their passage. A young girl translates into Italian Albanian words being called out: son, husband, bread, song, love, cold, flower, good, hand, apple, shoe, ship, sea. After muttering sea, she smiles.
Awards for Lamerica
1994 European Film Awards - "Best Film"
1994 Venice Film Festival - 4 Awards including "Best Director"
1995 São Paulo International Film Festival - "Critics Award"
1995 David di Donatello: Best Cinematography, Best Score, Best Sound
1995 Nastro d'Argento: Best Director, Best Cinematography
1996 Goya Awards - Best European Film
Some notes on Communism according to Slavenka Drakulic in How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
“Living conditions kill all privacy – or spread it out to the whole community” (p. 183).
“All of a sudden, private space became important, even fashionable in a country where for forty-five years, if not longer, nobody had even thought in these terms” (p. 97).
“Generally speaking, in any communist country there are not many things to throw away. One could even say that a communist household is almost the perfect example of an ecological unit, except that its ecology has a completely different origin: it doesn’t stem for a concern for nature, but from a specific kind of fear for the future” (p. 181).
4 comments:
Again, excellent post Lisa--and I love your use of the quotes by Drakulic at the end. With regard to that last one, I must say I saw some remarkably creative uses when I lived in the still-then Soviet Union in 1991 for Pepsi bottles, as those folks never threw anything away! It really was in that sense an ecological society (although Russia was, of course, polluted as hell, as was Eastern Europe, from industrial production), but it was clearly an ecology based on need, desperation, and poverty. Jeff
Jeff - the best part of this class so far is seeing, or attempting to see, human existence through the eyes of people in other cultures. You and several people in this class have had the privilege of living in other countries and have already had your eyes opened to ways of thinking that are not American. In the same vein, I feel privileged to learn from you and my fellow students through this program.
Lisa, this blog was set up so well, and I, too, thought the quotes at the end were fantastic! Curious: if you could live in another country for even just a month, which would you choose?
OK, my European ancestry drives me to safe places like Ireland or Germany, but after Jeff's courses and Bill Hamilton's Human Rights course, I would like to live in India, Thailand, or Vietnam - for just a month, mind you - to learn about the feminine side of their cultures.
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