Fantozzi Still Suffers

Ugo Fantozzi is still at the same company, still at the same desk and still beneath everyone. This instalment moves him between his marriage, the arbitrary whims of his superiors and the company's compulsory activities. A cycling race, a hunting party, a staff outing arrive in turn; the same thing happens in each and Fantozzi is crushed. The subject is not comedy but a clerk never being able to object. Across the whole series he answers back perhaps once, and when he does the catastrophe is larger. The film builds this as a class observation, and in Italy the type became a genuine social definition. The form is arranged as sketches. The links between sections are weak, each ends on its own joke and the narrative does not advance. The same structure repeats throughout. It is one of the sequels in the series. Paolo Villaggio, who created the character, wrote him first as a book, then played him on television, and the film series came out of that. Fantozzi's manner of speech, his formulas and his descriptions of company hierarchy entered Italian; some of the expressions now appear in dictionaries. Neri Parenti directs. Milena Vukotić plays his wife and Plinio Fernando his daughter. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian workplace comedy and know the Fantozzi series. Who it is not for: newcomers; most of the jokes depend on repeating the earlier films.