A Difficult Life

Silvio Magnozzi, a journalist who fought in the resistance, tries to live with the same stubbornness after the war: the paper he writes for closes, he goes to prison, he cannot find work, and his wife spends years in poverty because of his principles. Every comfortable door that opens, he refuses. In the end he accepts one. The film is not interested in heroism. It is interested in honesty being economically unsustainable: while tracking Italy's post-war rise it keeps asking the same question, what does staying honest earn a man in this arrangement. It answers at the end, and the answer is bitter. The form is comedy Italian style: comic scenes set right beside painful ones, episodes spread over fifteen years and real historical moments. The night of the referendum between monarchy and republic is its most famous scene. Dino Risi directed. The film counts among the hardest examples of Italian comedy and among the bleakest works of his career. Alberto Sordi plays Silvio. He was generally known as the likeable schemer; this is the role in which he broke that mould, and it is regarded as the best performance of his career. Who it is for: viewers who like comedy Italian style and films about post-war Italy. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a sympathetic hero. Silvio is often in the wrong, selfish towards his family, and the film does not absolve him.