Customer Reviews

The Organizer (The Criterion Collection)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The characters, for the most part, are not *all that* fleshed-out, but rather are a group portrait, a delineation of what they are going through. Somehow, without being the most sophisticated film ever made, it will hold you to the very end. Check this one out.

So if you've ever done organizing, you know this is about as real as it gets. The workers are exploited--wanting of all things, a thirteen hour day. Their leader is a professor, a musical clown who arrives on a train. The employers behave as they do. Only if you watch the movie will you learn how it turns out--life, death, and the comedy of tragedy. Maybe one of the best movies about class struggle that has ever been made, right up there with Salt of the Earth.

I Compagni is memorable. When we consider why films move us, affect our lives, indeed, create us to some extent, we think of films such as this. This is not just an artistic triumph for all its filmmakers, but also a moving document of humanity. We take measure of Mastroianni not by his range of performance but by his deep involvement. Like France's Charles Aznavour has his heart in his song, Marcello Mastroianni is fully engaged in his performance. As Professor Sinigaglia in I Compagni, Mastroianni is at his best form. The source of his intensity is not his surface emotion, but the depths of his soul.

The Organizer shows a great view of environment where conflicts, between working class and factory's owners, starts at the beginning of century in Turin - Italy. If you are curious about the begin of industrial era in Europe, see the Organizer.

Mastroianni gives a muted performance as he moves from town to town organizing the masses into unions. Overlong and depressing. Uninvolving. The sort of film that used to give "foreign films" a bad name. Oscar Nom for Original Story.