The Working Class Goes to Heaven

A factory film. Lulù works at a lathe in a metal factory. He is paid by the piece, so the more he produces the more he earns. He works fast and is proud of it; the foreman holds him up as an example, and his workmates hate him. Then there is an accident and Lulù loses a finger. From there the film is about the man coming apart. His view of the factory changes, he sees whose interest the speed serves and he moves to the side of the strike. But the union does not fully accept him, the students want to make him a symbol, and nobody asks him what he wants to do. At home the order breaks too: his relationship with the woman he lives with, the distance from his son and an old workmate in a psychiatric hospital are the narrative's other lines. What the film is interested in is not political slogans but the fitting of a human body to a machine: the noise is constant, the camera moves between the machines, and much of the talking is done by shouting. Gian Maria Volonté plays Lulù. Mariangela Melato and Salvo Randone are in the cast. The music is by Ennio Morricone and works to the rhythm of the factory. Elio Petri directed. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It drew attacks from both right and left; the unions accused it of caricaturing the worker. Who it is for: anyone who likes the political Italian cinema of the 1970s. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a calm watch; the film is loud and restless, and means to be.