The Organizer: Mario Monicelli

I have seen quite a few European films about workers' strikes and revolutions. After a while, certain patterns start to emerge. One of the major patterns is that usually when a film depicts a repressed group of workers, individuals within said group are rarely characterized. There may be one, two, or three characters who get names, back stories, and emotions, but these are almost always the stoic leaders of the movement who can't be bothered by anything that isn't directly related to the advancement of the proletariat cause. And I guess that fits the ideology of socialist movements which emphasize unity and discourage individuality. But for this very reason many of these strike films seem emotionally sterile. Even films by the early Soviet masters like Eisenstein and Pudovkin seem strangely detached from their subjects. That isn't a criticism, of course. But then I see Mario Monicelli's The Organizer and my opinions on the European strike film are completely changed. The film follows the struggles of the workers at a Turin textile factory at the turn of the last century. When an old man loses a hand in an accident, the workers decide that they have had enough with the inhumanly long hours and poor safety conditions. They try to appeal to the owner, but are casually ignored. But then a drifter arrives and by chance overhears their plight at a union meeting. The man turns out to be Professor Sinigaglia, an expert in organizing strikes. He gives the community a second wind which gives them the courage to stage a real strike. From there, the story becomes predictably formulaic. They strike, the owners hire thugs, and it becomes clear that all roads will eventually lead to a final confrontation between the classes. But The Organizer is unlike any European strike film I have ever seen. Instead of transforming the oppressed workers into a faceless mass, Monicelli goes out of his way to characterize as many characters as possible. Professor Sinigaglia, for example, is a timid, albeit driven man who remains a perpetual outsider among the workers. The workers are full of characters that we grow to love. When they suffer, we feel more emotion for them and their plight because we know them. Monicelli's approach may not be ideologically accurate with its characterizations, but the result is a movie that has done more to endear me towards the plight of the working class than any Soviet film.

9/10