L'intrepido

Gianni Amelio balances his films between the political and the personal. Neither is very far away from the other, and over his long and illustrious career he has consistently produced a body of work that feels centred in the real world, where both elements intersect. His new film, L'intrepido, continues this tradition. It is engaging, imaginative and sprightly, while unafraid to move into troubling territory.

It focuses on a "substitute" worker (Antonio Albanese) living in Milan, who moves with agility, ease and bemusement among a succession of jobs. Even in middle age he remains a jack of all trades: construction worker, cook, streetcar driver, courier. He can sew seams, launder clothes, or clean a football stadium. He is a kind of Everyman; at times Amelio gives him a persona similar to a type portrayed by Chaplin or Keaton: happy, upbeat, unflappable. But, like the great clowns, he also carries a vein of hurt and unhappiness. His wife has just left him, his hopes are now all pinned on his saxophone-playing son. Into this strange, uncertain world of the marginally employed comes a younger woman, and a relationship of a different kind starts.

Amelio avoids sentiment in this story, undoubtedly similar to thousands of others, of a displaced man living in the big city, trying to get by and keep his dignity and his passions alive. Keenly concerned with human elements, the director is at the same time always conscious of the landscape that frames his characters' lives, a backdrop of construction sites, sports stadiums, factories, workshops, stores; concrete and brick, steel and glass. Against this impersonal world, art and love provide moments of solace, pain and grace. Amelio is a poet of uncertainty and L'intrepido captures Italy at a moment where uncertainty is ubiquitous.

PIERS HANDLING