new essay on Lamerica

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THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND CINEMATIC TECHNIQUES, IN CARO DIARIO, LAMERICA, AND NIRVANA

(title of doctoral dissertation)

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Gianni Amelio's retrieval of neorealist values for a cinema of social progress
The metaphoric search for the father in contemporary Albania

Lamerica (1994) starts like a film of the neorealist period, with a newsreel of the 1939 landing of the fascist troops into Albania, while the opening credits fade in and out on one side of the screen. Such beginning inevitably calls to mind the neorealist tradition, with films such as Roma, città aperta (1945), Paisà (1946), Ladri di bicilette (1948). The newsreel is an authentic piece of the time, edited at the head of Gianni Amelio's film, and documenting the landing of the army and consecutive key events of the expansion of Fascist Regime in April 1939: the sanctioning of the new laws, the establishing of the Fascist Cabinet and uniting of the armed forces, the historical flight to the capital Tirana, the replacing of king Zog's rule and mismanagement, the landing of the Duce's moschettieri at the Durazzo harbour, the creation of schools, courts, and health centres in defence of malaria, the building of railways, and so forth. May 1939 marked also the signing of the "Pact of Steel" with Germany. In 1936 Benito Mussolini had already invaded and conquered Ethiopia, and within the next year his allegiance with Adolf Hitler gave birth to what would be known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. 1940 saw the two dictators allied in WWII. The years 1935-1941 looked particularly promising for the Fascist Regime despite reaping soon the results of its fanciful political aspirations with the heavy casualties of Italian soldiers, such as the wars in Greece and North Africa.
By placing an authentic newsreel at the beginning of his film, Amelio substantiates his story with historical facts. The splitting of the screen in half newsreel and half credits, appearing simultaneously at the opening of Lamerica, in itself makes a statement by juxtaposition, which we could articulate in three main parts: (1) from the start Lamerica is introduces as a realist film, in line with the Italian neorealist tradition, and (2) its director and the production effort he headed as historical and literal-minded ones, and (3) its cinema a referential one, accounting for contemporary events, by associating and crediting themselves in parallel with such tradition and creed. Bondanella writes: "Amelio's America returns the spectator to neorealist origins in its examination of the refugee problem […] a situation that continues to cause social problems even today" (2001, 452). From a world cinema prospective we could consider it an implicit statement of belonging to the Lumière tradition opposed to the Méliès one. In the hands of realist filmmakers, film often function as a history text, the medium through which historical events are documented, observed, seen in a given perspective, tentatively analysed, and projected to the future-thus becoming history themselves. For Amelio the opening by a newsreel document serves also the purpose of providing the viewer with indications and notes on theme, plot, cause and effects, as well as to make a link between past and present, while looking at the future. One of the main ideas that emerges is that if one is to make the best of one's future he cannot afford to ignore the past when analysing the present.
"Amelio's film contains the same kind of denunciation of injustice so typical of the classic neorealist works of the past, and his film reminds us how much Italy has changed since the days when Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti were picturing Italy as a country very much like present-day Albania. In its attempt to present an accurate accounting of social conditions in both contemporary Italy and the Balkans, America represents and important link between contemporary Italian film and its cinematic heritage in neorealism" (Bondanella 2001, 454).
Gianni Amelio was born in Southern Italy (San Pietro Magisano, province of Catanzaro) in 1945. At the age of 3 his father left the family to emigrate in South America, in search of his own father, and returned to his wife and son 15 years later. Amelio graduated with a doctoral degree in philosophy and started his career in filmmaking as a voluntary editor and then remunerated teacher at the "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia" in Rome. His features Porte aperte (1990), Ladro di bambini (1991), and Lamerica (1994), have been awarded at major festivals (Cannes, Venice) and nominated for Academy Awards. As one may expect Gianni Amelio's intellectual and artistic career have therefore been affected by his own life story, emotional experience, and upbringing. Lamerica's plot ingredients of war, emigration, refugees, and interplay between the father-and-son-like characters of Michele and Gino, are also a testimony to Amelio's personal perspective.
In the introductory scene from the newsreel of 1939 we leap to the future in 1991, the first year after the collapse of the communist dictatorship, which hurled the country into chaos. The superimposed title tells us that we are again at the Durazzo harbour, half a century later, 52 years to be exact. The Albanian people are in turmoil as they shout: "Italia, tu sei il mondo!" Amelio seems to make a first projection of the 1939 events where the people's enthusiasm survives while its conditions have worsened, and chaos and upheaval have replaced originally alleged order and purpose. The character of Selimi (Piro Milkani) is introduced and right after the characters of Fiore (Michele Placido) and Gino (Enrico Lo Verso) as they welcome the former in their vehicle, an upmarket Suzuki. The Albanians are readily attracted by the jeep's appearance and its Italian business-like passengers, even the police seems to contemplate in admiration as they are allowed to cross the gate, while hundred if not thousands of poor and distraught Albanians try to force themselves through to reach the harbour. The contrast here between past and present, Albanians and Italians, bears a catastrophic tone from the start. To the eyes of many Albanians, Fiore and Gino seem to prosper on the legacy of the past and bear and envious façade of the present. They are welcomed as bearers of hope and future well-being. One of the implications carried by the words "Italia, tu sei il mondo!" is that fifty years later, and after the collapse of the communist dictatorship, to the Albanians Italy still means the world, that is, the prospector's 'promised-land'.
In the jeep it is Fiore who heads and leads the conversation, while they drive through huddles of Albanians carrying their children and few belongings headed to the harbour. Answering Fiore's question, Selimi says that Albania is ruled by the same people, what has changes is only the party's label. Such a political predicament is ominously similar to the neighbouring 'promised-land'. The 1990 in Italy saw many changes in political party names, policies, and orientations, and the beginning of the "Clean Hands" corruption investigation. In Amelio's film, Selimi proverbial answer doesn't seem to trigger any particular reaction in the two Italian would-be industrialist, a full understanding of which will be imparted to Gino through his transition and ultimate humiliating atonement. Amelio seems to have set up a twofold story in Lamerica: one of these being the Balkan's past and recent history of a victimized population, at the mercy of predatory regimes, and the other an under or above-the-surface reference to Italy's present climate. What Italians and Albanians alike, are saying about Albania, often becomes a mirror of the political and social state of affairs in the neighbouring Italy itself. The character's dialogues make inferences to a past climate as well as display an attitude of the present. A further suggestion of how our links to the past can never be ignored least be cut.
Selimi says the Albanians are poor, and are in need of capitals. The character of Gino here displays his somewhat naïve confidence in the entrepreneurial scheme they brought to Albania, readily assuring: "Arrivano i capitali, arrivano!" The squander of resources that Fiore points out to Selimi when suggesting to him all the new homes they could have built with the cement wasted on bunkers along the road, could well represent the reverse of Fiore and Gino's own selfish and corrupt capitalist scheme which brought them there. In fact the pretentious shoe factory they promise to put up will be less cospicuos and useful then the visible bunkers on the streets. On the same line we could apply Fiore's explanation of the Albanians plight: "Siete stati viziati. Lo stato ha sempre pensato a tutto," to Fiore and Gino own quest from grants to riches. Here the two Italians are the very example of how any corrupt attitude, whether originally fascist or communist, or whatever the background or social class, by its nature of being a human choice is hard to die.
"Fiore e Gino-tipici, fors'anche un po' troppo, del nostro naufragio-fanno quello che tanto spesso è stato fatto. Aprono una fabbrica che non produrrà mai nulla, s'inventano un presidente di comodo [...] s'apprestano a lucrare qualche miliardo di contributi da Roma. La storia di Lamerica parte appunto dalla nostra cronaca: dall'affarismo torbido, dall'uso cinico della corruzione, dalla truffa allo stato in combutta con i suoi funzionari. Ma alla cronaca non resta. La fuga di Spiro-in realtà si chiama Michele, ed è uno dei tanti italiani mandati dal fascismo in Albania con la falsa promessa d'un futuro meno misero-porta il film ben più nel profondo" (Escobar, "Viaggi in Italia" 73).
In Lamerica Amelio's cinema becomes a quest for identity, thorugh both a physical and moral journey, the retrieval of trustworthy values on which to build a likewise worthy future. Selimi leads the two Italians to the hotel, the same place where Albano and Romina-an Italian couple, and pop music stars-have stayed, says Selimi as if providing a form of guarantee of its quality and prestige. Fiore replies, somewhat ambiguously, that he praises the couple's success. At the hotel Fiore and Gino are introduced to a group of Albanians, friends of Selimi. Particular attention is given to a woman, "la donna che ha spinto il busto del dittatore," proclaimes proudly Selimi. The Italian television plays on in the background, an early indication of the Albanians favourite, if not only, choice of network, anticipating the Albanians religious-like attachment to Italy in front of what will appear to be one of its most celebrated 'sanctuary,' television. Shortly after Amelio cuts to a room where the characters of Fiore, Gino, Selimi, and the woman, are gathered around a desk: revealing to be the place where pretentious deals are put on the floor and promises are made. Fiore says to the woman that she shall be president of their shoe company, "Alba Calzature." The name given to the company could well refer metaphorically to the dawn of the footwear hoped-for industrial project, as well as to the woman, and the Albanian's women in general, which seem to represent most of the 'lighter' labour force. In Italian the word "Alba," other then signifying the sunrise, equally recurs as a woman's name. The many workers gathered by Fiore and his Albanian partner, and then lectured by the former at the shoe factory, are in fact almost all woman, opposed to the two instances of all men at the mine and on the crowed truck headed to the harbour. Within Fiore and Gino's calculated scheme (more Fiore's than Gino's, as we shall discover) the choice of name must therefore reflect their entrepreneurial strategy of raising expectations and fostering dreams while searching for their pawn-like production personnel. On the other side, Selimi does have plans of his own, no matter how low Albania's political and social conditions may sink.
While Fiore makes deals with the Albanian man and woman, Gino draws his attention aside to show him that Selimi and the woman in fact have the same last name. Discovered what appears to be a fraud on the Albanian side, Fiore now stands up, turns his back to the camera (that is to Selimi and the woman's subjective point of view) and starts shouting, asking angrily and in a rhetoric tone, whether they intend to fool him: "Io non mi debbo arrabbiare […] Allora cerchiamo di fare i furbi? Mi volete prendere per fesso?" After Selimi justifies his choice (saying that they are distantly related to each other, third degree cousins in fact) and threatens to leave with the woman if she goes, in a reconciliatory tone Gino relates to Selimi the emblematic tale on which is based the old and widespread pratice of corruption exposed in Lamerica. Gino's putting his hand on Selimi's shoulder here suggest both his offer of false-solidarity and condoning of the Italians duplicity:
"Al mio paese c'era una vecchietta che chiedeva l'elemosina [...] Uno che so io, per ragioni di tasse, gli ha intestato due alberghi... Capisce adesso quello che ci serve? Ci serve una testa di legno, uno che fa quello che diciamo noi. Dove li tenete i vecchi?"
By relating the tale originating from his own country and place, as indicated by the words "[al] mio paese," Gino makes clear from where, and from which specific loose morals, him and Fiore draw their guiding principle. One of the import of such lecturing tale is that an entrenched custom that works in Italy can be successfully exported and applied to the neighbouring Albania. The unnamed person author of the fraud in Gino's tale may even be assumed to be his own father. Certain customs are often handed from father to son, as Fiore's reference to the "Niger Electronic" enounces, when he tells Gino of the fraud they successfully perpetrated in Nigeria with Gino's very own father. The entire preceding sequence is also an indirect acknowledgment to the intrinsic power of corruption to unite "birds of a feather," no matter their language, culture, heritage, and praiseworthy constitutional values. The motivating force bringing together the two Italian con men and Albanian con man is portrayed as that of a hyena-like scavenger, despite the respectability displayed by both at the surface level. In one of the final scenes, a police authority, in reply to the justifying attempt of a detained Luigi Cotrali (Gino's character's full name) says: "Economia albanese è morta, ma i morti non si lasciano ai cani per strada."
Through such lines, Amelio (who is also credited ahead of scriptwriters Porporati and Sermoneta as author of the script) provides the viewer with a unambiguous definition of the true nature of Gino's character and characters alike. When Gino tells Selimi the Italian tale of the elderly woman after whom one, 'of his knowledge,' has named two hotels in order to evade taxes, he is telling an old story, and deeply-rooted habit, and at the same time is revealing one of the main ideas at the core of Lamerica's plot. An elaborate practice of make-believe was at the basis of the fascist regime's growth in popularity. They are regarded as the infamous "false promesse" Escobar writes of ("Viaggi in Italia" 73). By resorting to fraudulent ways and strategies the fascist regime was initially able to avoid the, say, taxing retort of many honest Italian people. Its success reached the neighbouring Balkans and conquered the esteem of an already berated, impoverished, and ailing Albanian populace. Amelio's film documents how through the years the exploiters have changed colours, and political allegiances have changed their labels, but the characters and their dishonest practices have remained. In other words we are made witness of a change of façade but not of 'heart.' Mario Sesti refers to such resulting hollowness in Lamerica's characters when he speaks of the film as "cuore di tenebra mediterraneo" (1994, 114).
The plot of Lamerica brings together a honest elderly man, initially swayed by the fascist regime, but who has never given up on his timeless human values, and a young, corrupt and somewhat naïve get-rich-quick man, whose values are at the only mercy of a selfish desire, shared by him and his older friends. Gino's early words in the film, "ci serve una testa di legno, uno che fa quello che diciamo noi," appear to pre-shadow his own block-headedness as well as anticipate the exact opposite of what he shall experiment with. Gino's inability to recongize his own past in the Albanians' plight suggests his lack of any historical memory. His selfish and short-sighted purpose will eventually lead him to necessary bewilderment before any is redemption is made possible. Many see illustrated in Gino's character a cautionary tale for like-minded contemporary Italy, and rightly so.
"Che cosa hanno in comune con noi gli albanesi che rincorrono una speranza, una promessa, un'illusione? Ci lega a loro la nostra televisione, che manda oltre il mare la sua idiozia menzognera? Sono solo loro che vogliono farsi simili a noi, o siamo anche noi a doverci riconoscere in loro? [...] Confuso su una nave colma di uomini tanto simili a lui, Gino sente d'essersi perso. Perdersi è forse la condizione per ritrovarsi" (Escobar, "Viaggi in Italia" 74).
Amelio now cuts to a pit-like place, a gloomy mine, where apparently both elderly and invalid workers are kept: a prison camp, the place "[dove] tenete i vecchi." Fiore and Gino are lead through the gate, what appears to be an ailing and bewildered crowd of people draw towards them. One old man gives Fiore a kiss, and another lays a hand on his shoulder as they search for their "testa di legno" man. Selimi, after pointing out that beside lice these people may carry contagious diseases, relates what the former director used to say: "chi ha pidocchi dorme male, e chi dorme male, lavora male." Fiore, who initially entered the place displaying a lord-like attitude, is now frightened by it and soon his experience turns into an infernal one when he is circled and beset by its lost souls-like dwellers. He keeps yelling: "portatemi via da qui" to his partners and guides, who have purposely been kept out of the scene. The tartaric-like environment, the downfall conditions of its dwellers, and the ideology at the basis of their treatment, all contribute to communicate the sense of alienation and conditions of utter misery borne for decades by the Albanian people, and by extension the plight of any exploited and victimized population and individual in the Balkans, which reminds once again of Italy's own past. The privileged businessman Fiore is suddenly confronted with a 'lower' environment and its people, whose servility and subjection he welcomes, but whose social level and plight he does not want to and is incapable of comprehending and bearing. His swift frailty and somewhat cowardice attest to the contrary of his alleged firm status and level, and contribute to identify the features of a corrupt man. The setting and its characters here is a further example of apt interplay meant to carry out an unequivocal function, one of which is certainly that of delivering a strong argument in favour of the unprivileged. As Antonio Vitti points out, Fiore and Gino's initial visits, interactions, and conversations with the local people highlight their ignorance and arrogance towards a populace with whom they share much history. ("Albanitaliamerica" 253) Their trip to Albania is in a way a trip back to "Lamerica," the historical time frame when Italian themselves looked to America and their immigration there as the solution to their own plight and experience of totalitarian regime exploitation. As Amelio himself explained at the workshop screening of nother film of his (Colpire al cuore), on the 18th of April 1992 at the Cinema Mignon in Rome, the title to his film was suggested to him by the way in which in his own family referred to the land of opportunities oversees as "Lamerica," without the awareness of any apostrophe separating the article form the proper name. Vitti writes: "Gli albanesi disperati e in cerca di un futuro migliore seguendo un gioco ironico del destino vanno in Itlaia, la loro America, alla maniera di tanti Italiani poveri e affamati che andavano in Lamerica" ("Albanitaliamerica" 258).
The following scene introduces the second main character of Lamerica Spiro Tozaj, who is later re-discovered as Michele Talarico, played by Carmelo di Mazzarelli, an unprofessional actor. Amelio's choice of picking a countryman who has never appeared on screen and judged suited for the part because of his natural features and referentially realistic life experience (that is, an Italian who experienced the Fascit era first-hand) once again resembles those of the neorealist period. "Carmelo di Mazzarelli, che interpreta la parte del personaggio Spiro/Michele, è un pensionato siciliano reduce della seconda guerra mondiale" (Vitti 260). Here the matching of professional and unprofessional actors yields an extraordinary performance, the results of the actors' natural and established talents combined to Amelio's proven masterful direction.
Fiore and Gino meet Spiro for the first time in the director's office at the mine. Spiro is an old yet strong man, who has spent years in the prison camp. He is afraid to speak, 'frightened as he has been by the frequent questioning of the communist regime,' explains Selimi. In a medium shot, in the director's office, Spiro is placed in the distance, while sitting on what appears to be a stool, his head lowered to display a sense of penance. Everyone else is standing, which makes Spiro's lowly conditions the more marked. In reference to this scene Vitti writes that "[I] due soci […] lo esaminano [Spiro] come se fosse una bestia alla fiera" (254). In Albanian they ask him to sign his name on a sheet. Gino happily reads the man's name, Spiro Tozaj, and concludes the old man to be Albanian. When Fiore asks how old the man is, Spiro raises both his hands and opens and closes them twice, implying that he is twenty years old. Amelio then cuts to a key sequence and key close-up of Lamerica: a close shot of Fiore's conscious expression, and then a close-up of Spiro, whose countenance is revealed for the first time, as he slowly raises his head and his unadulterated eyes meet Fiore's calculating ones. This is both a key and turning point in the film, where past and present meet eye to eye and the search to bridge the gap commences. From now on Spiro's character is invested with capital significance to both the film's plot line and the other characters' personal stories. Spiro's act of telling his years with the use of his hands, besides allowing him to answer his interlocutors' question without uttering a word, contributes to the picture of an uneducated elderly man. His asserting that he is only a twenty-year-old man, when he appears to be somewhere over sixty, constitutes sufficient evidence for Fiore and Gino that he is the "testa di legno" they are looking for, thus reiterating once again their persistent ignorance. Yet Amelio seems to cast over this particular sequence a shadow of mystery. The mise-en-scène, with the players' disparity and cognisant positioning of four to one, the trajectory of glances between Fiore and Spiro, Spiro's muteness, and his delayed revelation, all seem to make the introduction of Spiro the more ambiguous and his real identity the more inscrutable. Such sense of secrecy is in line with a question raised in the viewers mind when later on Fiore, looking at Spiro now well dressed and cared for, says: "Mi ricorda mio padre, tale e quale." (What is the real relation between Spiro and Fiore? Did Fiore unknowingly end up meeting and exploiting his own father? Or is Amelio here executing his more general discourse on human values, such as the family, where older people, wherever they are found, may well represent one's own parent?) The confronting and resolving of the rapport between older and younger generation is certainly at the centre of the vicissitude that find Gino and Spiro/Michele involved in, throughout the remainder of Lamerica. Moreover stories of father and son are a recurrent motif in Amelio's films, either directly a key motif as in Colpire al cuore, or one alluded to as in Ladro di bambini. Gianni Amelio candidly explains what makes such relationship a paramount idea in his works, while probably shadding light on his cinematic style as well:
"Rabbrividisco di fronte all'adolescenza intesa come Eden, o come oggetto di nostalgia, o come età della felicità perduta, perché per me è stato il periodo più tragico anche se-come per tutti-il più importante. Ciò che mi ha segnato per sempre è stato l'allontanamento di mio padre quando io avevo poco più di un anno. Nel '47, emigrò in Sudamerica per seguire le orme del proprio padre del quale se ne erano da anni perse le tracce. Mio padre aveva meno di vent'anni allora, mia madre diciassette. Ritornò dopo quindici anni, e dopo aver scoperto che suo padre non lo considerava più suo figlio essendosi ricostruito lì una famiglia [...] penso di essere molto lento, raggiungo dopo traguardi che altri hanno già superato. Arrivo tardi alle letture importanti, sulle posizioni politiche, ecc. Proprio perché ho dovuto sempre e solo partire da me stesso, sin da bambino" (Sesti 1994, 37-40).
If Amelio's style is regarded as often bare and blunt, and him seen seemingly distancing himself from his characters, it may be a direct reflection of his personal experience. Thus the treatment of his cinematic stories is a somewhat mediated autobiography of his own storia affettiva (history of the relationship within one's familay). "L'idea iniziale era quella di fare un film sull'emigrazione. Un film su mio padre, un film sulla storia della mia famiglia" (Volpi 148).
At the Ministry, where Spiro is made to sign the official validation of the shoe company, Selimi relates that Mr. Kruja, supposedly the minister, "è contento che un eroe democratico farà il presidente," alluding to Spiro. The heroism is derived from Spiro's decades of imprisonment during the communist regime and his ultimate redemption to an alleged position of deserved prestige and honour, that of the presidency of the "Alba Calzature" company in a now democratic environment. He is then brought to a centre of Nuns of Mother Theresa. During the trip he urinates in the car, which gets Gino angry to the point of attempting to give him a lesson by thrusting his head on the messed passenger seat, as if he were a dog, when Selemi is made to intervene justifying the man's his action due to his age and much suffering. Inside the centre Selemi tells Fiore that if they add some more money they could have the nuns take care of Spiro for his entire life. As they make deals, Spiro is sent among the many young children who appear to be the ordinary care of the centre, and who in fact are the ones mainly occupying the place. The contrast between the different categories of age is once again premonitory of displacement and manipulation. The charitable mission is exploited as a cover-up for the con men's deals, just as Spiro is a cover-up for Fiore and Gino's need of a figurehead. And the latter characters are incapable of looking deeper into the facts unfolding before their eyes. In fact Spiro, whose real identity is not made a subject of interest, is utterly displaced there, and shortly after his manipulators leave, he leaves the place as well, and heads towards what he believes to be Sicily, his place of origin. Yet Fiore sends Spiro in such a unfamiliar environment by referring to it as "casa tua," and then, while looking at Spiro among the young children, utters the words mentioned earlier: "Mi ricorda mio padre, tale e quale."
Here in the montage of his film Amelio cuts from a close-up of Fiore's glance to a medium shot of Spiro among the children and his glancing back at Fiore. Fiore subjective glance is therefore passed to the viewer, who is called to give meaning to it at his own expense, that is, by implicitly assuming Fiore's place and mingle his own response with that one. The juxtaposition of young and old in such a displaced environment results particularly evocative in this emblematic mise-en-scène. At the narrative level, by making Fiore recall to memory his own father, Amelio both reinforces the natural association the character is brought to make with ones of a allegedly different ethic background, who unknowingly look similar to his own, and at the same time raises questions, and legitimate suspicions, on the father and son relationship in Fiore's own life. (Amelio's re-appropriation of an unsolved filial relationship projected to Spiro's character?) The character of Fiore is soon left out in the proceeding of the film (which could also be interpreted as a unconscious response to the loss of the father), and the emblematic interaction is shifted to Spiro and Gino's subsequent developing rapport and its resolution.
The Italian men's manipulation of Spiro as a puppet at the head of their dubious corporation, Gino's ill treatment of Spiro's old age and so forth, all shed an unfavourable light on Gino and Fiore's own family background. Amelio is not interested in singling out neither sons nor fathers, for only the purpose of finding out who is to blame for such trends and their outcome. What does emerge, though-and shall be even clearer in the proceeding of the film-is that business practices cannot be put above pre-existent human-family interrelations and values, which tie generation of people together, more so when they share more that what they know. Furthermore by tying Fiore, and eve more, Gino and Spiro's destiny together, Amelio makes clear that his characters are all responsible for each other, and makes an irrefutable point of how disastrous declining such an obligation can be. Other than making him look at first just cynically calculating, as his role primarily requires, Amelio seems to give to the character of Fiore-in line with his suspicious relation to Spiro-words which to the viewer may sound symptomatic of reconciliation when he makes him instruct Gino with the following: "Io domani sono a Roma, al ministero. Tu rimani qui e fai registrare i contratti... e fai fare una cura riconstituente al vecchietto." The conciliatory tone is picked up by the use of the diminutive "vecchietto," which is not justified by any previous dialogue or particular occurrence other than Fiore's own characterization and will. Such a critical relationship between father and son is frequently recognized to be at the heart of Amelio's cinema.
"Colpire al cuore [...] spazio di assoluta e indecifrabile tensione in cui prendere di petto quello che è il cuore del suo cinema: il rapporto tra padri e figli, adulti e giovanissimi, nei suoi film divisi sempre da sentimenti che solo un grande mistero ed esagerata delicatezza si possono investigare. [...] Il ladro di bambini [...] il film in cui rischia e ottiene di più provando a riscrivere quel padre negato e tormentato che affiora in tutto il suo cinema, nella figura del carabiniere che si porta appresso per l'Italia due bambini come pacchi postali da consegnare a qualche istituto di rieducazione. In questo senso Lamerica [...] in cinemascope in cui lo stesso attore che diventava un padre simbolico nel ladro di bambini (Enrico Lo Verso) è un figlio fittizio, arido e svuotato, è una ulteriore e più raffinata sovrapposizione di riferimenti cinematografici e attualità" (Sesti 1994, 114)
In Amelio's cinema by extension one could likewise think of a father and son relationship between the nation and its citizens, of which Gino and Spiro's relationship could be a metaphor. A country's political obligations and the destiny thrust upon its countrymen were at the core of the Fascist euphoria and motivating forces in its fateful collapse. How Lamerica is both a political and philosophical work, a film of rights and wrongs, of responsibilities and consequences, of personal ethics and universal values, and ultimately of life's morals and their meaning, is also evident in Amelio's choice of monologues. When addressing and indoctrinating his would-be shoe factory workers, who are almost all woman, Fiore paraphrases, and twists to his own advantage, and illustration found in one of S. Paul's epistles. In an abandoned shoe factory he stands in his Italian suit and tie in front of tens of women in their working close, which are probably non much different from their other close, given the conditions in the country. The fact that a biblical sermon is executed in an abandoned shoe factory makes a good play of places versus their content and purpose. It is not unusual to find abandoned churches used for purposes different from its original one in European countries, more so if the country is in turmoil. In Lamerica, though, there are no churches (at least not recognizable ones, and not because Albania lacks them, despite its recent communist past), which by itself suggests religious renounce, due probably to the churches' failure that Amelio's vision seems to ratify. In this instance Fiore makes a political speech, a religious sermon purposely made the wrong way round, and out of its usual domain, from an abandoned church to an abandoned factory. He tells them that though the communist have taught them people to be all equal, on the contrary, they are all different, just as the body parts are all different, different but essential, he stresses. What Amelio purposely does not make him say, is that normally no body parts harm other body parts but rather they take care of one another. The underlying moral is that evangelical doctrines and teachings are twisted and exploited for monetary gains-that is, to the diametrically opposite purpose. This event once again parallels the similar politicised 'sermons' made on larger scale in the past, as Peter Bondanella writes:
Fiore's impatient sermons […] cannot but remind the spectator of the pompous claims advanced by the fascist documentaries opening the film that Italy has finally introduced the Albanians to civilization in 1939" (2001, 453).
Although religion and the divine are not given much voice in Lamerica-as a matter of fact none of its characters ever mention them, neither positively nor negatively, even in the direst of circumstances-this scene alone is a nonetheless significant statement to the widespread and millennial exploitation of the religious factor, also crucial to the rise of Fascism in Italy. (It is interesting to note that in the original script, one of Mother Theresa Nun's was supposed to ask if Spiro Tozaj was catholic or Islamic. Further suggesting the embedded regard for separate affiliations no matter how severe the surroundings.) Fiore is the typical overconfident and well spoken con man who seems to think very little of the people he takes advantage of and is easily able to manoeuvre his other partners. When Gino points out to Fiore that nothing works at the factory's machinery, Fiore relates the fraudulent story of the "Niger Electronic," and the success enjoyed with Gino's father. Gino adds unconvincingly that in Albania though there are more risks of inspections, and then asks if the Albanians "ci credono alle storie degli investimenti?" Fiore cynical answer adds once again to his ignorance when he replies that the Albanian people are like babies "sono come bambini; uno gli dice che il mare è fatto di vino, e loro se lo bevono." The character of Gino shall experience the contrary of such idea (for the character of Fiore is made to flee the country and kept out from any countercheck of his words for the remainder of the film) and discover in contemporary Albania the historical significance of his own country's past and how it relates to his own present and future, in a way he wasn't aware of.

Lamerica: the backdrop of a past promise to appraise the present

Though his case may be considered a mysterious one for he hasn't lost memory of his history, identity, language and values, the time-space frame of 1939 in which Michele (who is still known as Spiro here) believes to be still living in, has an expressive function in Lamerica. In its apparent circumstantial oddity it seems to serve the purpose of projecting to the present both the original promise made to him, and Italians alike, and the strong grip such promising prospects still have on him. Thus against the backdrop of Italy's fascist past, which Michele is a constant reminder of, the present conditions of both Albania and Italy are being appraised. Shortly after Fiore disappears, Gino meets with Selimi again for the last time. Selimi says that he will not be able to assist him for he is busy with the Germans tomorrow, suggesting the widespread and hectic network of corrupt businesses the country has fallen prey to, both from inside and from outside. At the Nuns of Mother Theresa centre, Gino finds out the Spiro has disappeared as well. In what could be considered Amelio's parenthetical discourse to the viewer, the nun says that Spiro Tozaj left because he is not a baby, as his manipulators might have conveniently but naively thought. Before beginning his search for Spiro (which is gradually changed into a self-discovery) Gino threatens her, saying that he will make the centre close altogether for he has given them much money. Outside the centre he talks to a young man, dressed with Spiro's close. The man informs him that Spiro has gone to the railroad, that he was crying, and that in his opinion the old man is crazy for he wants to get to Italy with the train. Amelio then cuts to the inside of the running train. Spiro, now back in his comfortable own close, takes a seat among the rest of the refugees, while the soundtrack anticipates the music accompanying the film's finale. Gino vainly pursues the train in his Suzuki, and then tries getting help from the police resorting to the threatening remark that Spiro is a personal friend of the Minister. He is told that the policemen are few and can't offer any help. He then offers them money, and the policeman accepts with the proverbial saying, "una mano lava l'altra." Amelio continues his discourse with the viewer, making the secondary characters indirectly tell the morals of the story by providing unsolicited answers to the main characters' illusory quest to wealth. It is the nun who informs that Spiro is not a baby, for babies do not leave the centre where adults do. Once again Fiore and Gino are portrayed as utterly uninformed and pursuing an equally ignorant scheme. Ironically Fiore and Gino's money and resources end up spread to the 'four winds,' to mutually Albania's distraught people, charitable missions, and corrupt policemen. The ingenuity is revealed to be on the side of those who are supposed to be postmodern and clever entrepreneurs. The two Italians alleged progressed status is a shallow one, and they lack any vision of the important lessons one must learn form the past. On the other hand Spiro's displaced analysis of the present through the eyes of the past is not a joke after all, as Gino contemptibly may have thought. Spiro gradually becomes lesser a fool than what he initially may appear to be, and yet is an emotional man who anguishes to return to a worthwhile legacy: his small town, family, humble work, and well-tested traditional values. The full victims of Lamerica's foolery are both Gino and the Albanian people. The younger Italian and more inexperienced Gino shall be left almost alone, to discover in Albania's direst circumstance the real person he must be, for even the more cunning Fiore betrays him. When contacting Fiore in Italy, this one both safely off territory and off screen, lets Gino down, for he has nothing to say (in fact he is not heard on the soundtrack): an implicit statement that the hazardous game is over. Gino's own words "uno che fa quello che diciamo noi," originally addressed to Selimi, fail him and soon sound as a mockery.
As the film proceeds Spiro becomes more and more autonomous, and contrary to his manipulators expectations, he manages to become the only hook to survival for Gino himself. What follows is a peripatetic plot-a Greek word borrowed from the homonymous theatre tradition. The viewer soon discovers that the main character believes himself invulnerable to what he considers to be foreign woes, shrouded as he is in a lavish mentality, the vulnerability of which on the contrary is breached and bit-by-bit shattered, both on the physical and psychological level, as the story unfolds. He initially is made to feel strong of his background, his italianità, his presumed easy access to money, and his influences. He uses them to threaten others or expect from them respect and special treatment because of these very outward credentials. Thus Amelio uses Spiro's supposedly own loss of direction, with respect to time and space, also to further the idea of a universal and omnipresent fascist regime-a vain ambition allegedly enthused by the vestiges of the bygone Roman Empire-by grotesquely staging its inadequacy and ultimate fiasco in Gino's misadventure. Spiro conviction that Albania is Italy, and that he therefore will be able to reach Sicily by train, paradoxically becomes a strengthening force for Spiro himself on one hand (who in the film is portrayed as an unusually strong man despite his old age), and a grotesque lesson for Gino on the other. Moreover the characterization and age of the two main characters allow for a comparison and re-examination of past and present history, of old and new attitudes, the appraising of their strengths and assessing of their value. Spiro will be revealed as the strongest and most endurable hero, both physically and morally, while Gino will be cast from arrogantly upheld privileged conditions to misery and utter despair. Such a meaningful twofold target in Lamerica's plot amounts to the important statement that regardless of the dominating influence thrust upon an individual, Spiro or Gino alike, it is the reaction and choices of that one that will ultimately determine one's destiny. Amelio's endeavour in making an epocal and epical film such as Lamerica is eloquent testimony of both his concern and ability to map onto celluloid the life of his own country and its journeys, and turn them into personal history.
The very idea of a 'personal history' is a praiseworthy goal which guarantees the film's success, for despite its geographic and historic specificity and Amelio's study-like pedinamento of the two Italian's characters in the neighbouring Albania, Lamerica is to be considered in relation to the treatment reserved to its subject matter and the relative mise-en-scène. Regardless of the production effort, provoking and legitimate questions in regard to a film's ultimate crafting may be raised from any critical viewer. These are most probably the same question Amelio had to deal with in making Lamerica. For instance he may have wondered how accurate he wanted his chronicling of contemporary history to be. Can such a project be totally accurate and unbiased in the eyes of any viewer? Hardly so, for besides being such an effort regulated by a variety of variables, it is ultimately dependant on how accurate each individual viewer wants to perceive it.
"Ci sono momenti intensi sul piano espressivo: la sgangherata nave "Partizani" ripresa dall'alto con quel sovraccarico umano. Ma stilisticamente-e non soltanto stilisticamente-Lamerica non mi convince, a cominciare dell'impiego del Panavision, che rimanda a certi effetti da kolossal, al modo spettacolare" (Guido Aristarco, in Nicola Siciliani de Cumis "Ecce Lamelio alla scoperta della "Merica," Cinema Nuovo, numero 6, 1994).
Yet Amelio's personal vision is strikingly convincing to many others. Apart from, or because of, his very choices, Amelio has made Lamerica into a touching and contemporary journey for many, if not a prophetic text. Antonio Vitti writes:
"Lamerica di Gianni Amelio è l'intreccio di piccole e grandi storie. Una sinfonia visiva sui temi più rilevanti della nostra epoca: le grandi migrazioni e la memoria storica" (250). "[...] rimane un film che commuove, un'opera il cui messaggio resta con gli spettatori" (258).
In 1997, after almost a decade of persistent attempts made by tens of thousands of Albanians to migrate to Italy, the Italian government headed by Romano Prodi agrees to lead a multinational United Nation force to ensure humanitarian aid to Albania (Harper 95-115). Amelio's personal vision, far from being an abstract interplay of fictional characters and settings, therefore translates into a cinema of social progress and is ultimately made into history.
In a following scene, Spiro, on the run towards Italy, is attracted by a group of Albanian children mingling on the streets. An anticipation of his love for the family, and reaffirming of his specific characterization and set of values, of which we will be reminded in his relentless recounting to Gino of his own family and child left in Sicily. Soon, though, what initially seems to be an anticipation of a natural reunion turns out to be an almost fatal error of judgment on Spiro's part. As the music heard also in the finale fades in, we witness the explosive results of mistaking children's angelically innocent eyes for mirrors of good souls, for, on the contrary, at this given moment only hungry and devilish creatures inhabit the distraught and violent surroundings. After stealing his shoes, a group of children pull Spiro along with them and finally thrust him into a bunker. As one of the children climbs the top of the bunker to flaunt what he has plundered, Spiro's shoes as if it were a trophy, we see another setting fire into the same bunker where Spiro has been confined. While we don't get to see Spiro at this point, Amelio by placing the camera into the pitch-dark bunker, transfers upon the viewer what must be assumed as Spiro's subjective and frightful glace. He films a close shot of the children thronged outside the bunker, their mocking laughs seen from the inside of the bunker with one's glance directed towards the aperture and only source of light. From the latter shot Amelio cuts to Gino while driving his Suzuki, and then to the interior of a hospital. At the hospital Gino will be told by the Albanian police that "un vecchio italiano è stato slavato," giving to the viewer the first hint on Spiro real identity.
By ending the previous sequence with the highly symbolic shot from inside the bunker, Amelio is able to use it as a dynamic illustration, where the nature of the place and its interplay with the character may well stand for many other places and characters (that is, an infinity of symbolically similar situations), thus making its final outcome a viewers call. It is grotesque that the only source of light must be the mocking laughs of children, turned from object of love and care into infantes diables, and one's nightmare. A further hint at Fiore and Gino's dreadful reversal as the Italian children who end up exploiting their own symbolic father? Whether or not it was Amelio's intention to do so, the above sequence reiterates the theme of the relationship between fathers-and-sons and results in a brilliant way to put once again in a problematic opposition present and past. "The classic neorealist cinema often employed children as the symbol of a future hope, of the possibility of social change [i.e. Ladri di biciclette] Amelio's film rejects such optimistic message" (Bondanella 452). It is generally known that filmmakers and artists in general do not necessarily engineer every movement they implement, but wisely rely on their own intuition with often quite successful result as in the aforementioned case. On the other hand this particular sequence could also be regarded as one of Spiro's character's 'weaker moments.' A moment in which he is found off guard, somewhat unexpectedly gullible, and incapable of surviving on his own. The fact however that he is often referred to as "un uomo forte," by the secondary characters, even by the health workers who restore his condition, coupled with the film's untold and implied prior events of his decade tested resilience (almost 50 years), leave plenty of room for speculation, on how he managed to survive the horrors of WWII, the years of communists dictatorship, and up to the nineties. The characterization is made for narrative purposes of course, yet the likelihood of finding such stories is real, and thus such a depiction can be regarded as "momenti di verità" (Vitti 258). Again Spiro's unwavering faith in traditional family values, friendship, and honesty, and the paradoxically-made-lucky encounter with his would-be exploiter make him a winner and ultimately Lamerica's hero.
At the hospital, Amelio delegates to the woman doctor the role of revealing Spiro's real name and identity to Gino, as well as the plot's driving mystery to the viewers. When the policemen tell Gino that an Italian elderly man was rescued, he replies: "Io cerco un albanese." Shortly after, the woman doctor, taking care of Spiro, and who speaks a broken Italian, asks Gino: "È tuo parente?" Once again Gino, confident of his 'catch,' and in a somewhat repulsive undertone, replays: "Che parente, io sono italiano. Questo si chiama Spiro Tozaj!" The doctor then explains that it doesn't mean much, for during Mussolini's rule he had no problems in identifying himself as an Italian: "Durante Mussolini italiani. Poi durante il comunismo italiani [...] prendono nome albanese." She tells Gino that Spiro said he had a beautiful Italian name: Michele Talarico. Still unyielding to the unfamiliar truth, Gino insists: "Adesso però è albanese. [...] Che cos'è per la legge di qua?" The doctor's replay appears as a wisely driven claim of her right to abstain from legal-political matters: "Io sono un dottore non conosco legge." Against the doctors recommendations Gino insists on taking Spiro with him, and he does so while repeating the doctor's own words that Spiro is a strong man and therefore will be fine. When looking for Spiro's stolen shoes Gino asks: "Come me lo porto, scalzo?" The doctor leaves, unable to help, when an apparently struck-dumb elderly woman, sitting beside another patient's bed, picks up a pair of black shoes and holds them towards Gino's subjective glance, which is meant to become the viewer's own. Though it is said that "In questo film fortemente personale non vi è un solo accenno da parte di Amelio alle proprie emozioni" (Klawans, "Lamerica," The Nation 1996), Amelio's powerful subjective camera stirs the viewers' emotional and moral response to the story in an unequivocal direction. The direction is that of the opposition between selfish, cynical, and contemptible, on one side and, generous, understanding, and friendly, on the other. In other words Amelio's cinema unequivocably aims at yielding a humanitarian lesson in the viewer's heart, the understanding of people and their history as a way to understand and appreciate our own. How much such a lesson is needed is evident in Oreste Pivetta' appraisal of present Italy, which is not that rosy:
"Lamerica è un film corale che fa i conti con la storia, quella italiana di ieri, mezzo secolo fa, e di oggi […] mette in gioco alcune convinzioni, che giungono oltre la politica, nella sua morale senza scampo […] I 'buoni' saremmo dovuto essere noi, noi italiani sulle banchine dell'Adriatico. Ma tutti sanno come andrà a finire e come la nostra disponibilità alla fratellanza, alla solidarietà, all'ospotalità si sia infranta" (Pivetta 23).
The previous sequence yields other historical facts. It portrays each event in chronological order, that is, organized in a consequential and linear progression, and ends on the symbolic last medium shot before Amelio cuts to the running Suzuki with Gino and Spiro on board. In order to survive many Italians have taken on Albanian names, as it is the case with Spiro Tozaj whose real name is Michele Talarico, and may well be the case with the patients next to him. Both the character of Gino and the viewer of Lamerica are called to take note of this fact and start reflecting on its implications. Despite its non-omniscient narrative style, Lamerica makes the viewer discover along with, and concurrently to, its main character, Gino, the dreadful consequences of the mockery played to many Italian people by the distasteful history of usurpation and conflicts (yet not a reason for loss of memory) lead by extreme movements in both Italy and the Balkans in the twentieth century. The speechless elderly woman, who readily understands Gino's request for a pair of shoes, and hands him the ones belonging to her own sick or moribund, if not dead, relative, gives evidence of this widespread fact. The latter scene seems to be a silent yet powerful comment of this very predicament and a testimony of a less fortunate Italian, probably also concealed under an Albanian identity. Gino's confidence and pretended invulnerable status-who is legally Italian opposed to Michele's close to illegal claim of still being an Italian-receives a further shake the magnitude of which will be soon felt in all its demoralizing and devastating power as he and Michele journey to the Adriatic sea, headed to "Lamerica's" dream. Gino doesn't seem to give much weight to the doctor's explanation of both Albanian and Italian's historical misadventure and its disastrous implications in the life of two mismanaged peoples. His unstated refusal to share any sort of responsibility for, or admit to, the grotesque game played to both Italians and Albanians, at fascists' hands first and then at the hands of other dictatorships, is indicative of the lack of historical memory and consciousness in a young Italian man, and by extension in many other probably rootless and adrift Italian young adults.
While Spiro holds tightly onto his Italian heritage, claiming his real name to be Michele and his real identity Italian, the postmodern Italian character of Gino is unable to take meaningful note of the disastrous condition of Albania and the Albanian people. He keeps asking the woman doctor, "Che cos'è per la legge di qua?" choosing instead to rely on a meaningless and ever fading belief of law and order, of which fact he will be straightforwardly reminded later on in the film, both when he is put straight into prison and subsequently bluntly questioned. Yet Amelio makes also sure to provide the viewer with examples of human solidarity, which are spread throughout the plot of Lamerica, given by Albanian, and Italians undercover, young and old alike, the most eloquent lesson of which is given by the conduct of Michele Talarico himself. Lamerica's non-omniscient narrative style, its Zavattinian based technique of pedinamento, its lack of inner voices, its avoidance of flashbacks, its linear structure, its cause and effect principle, and its immediate rendition style (opposed to slow motions and other special effects and diffracted renditions) all contribute to create a documentary-like experience presented to the viewer, who is thus called to witness the unfolding of the story and get involved at both the emotional and intellectual levels. In virtue, and despite, of what De Cumis says when speaking of Lamerica as "un'opera interrogativa, aperta, espressivamente non sempre risolta ma, in forza dei suoi stessi limiti, zavattiniamente "utile"," Amelio's film has captured the attention of viewers and critics alike as a work of a great master of the "new Italian cinema." "Such cinema has now reached full maturity in the works of such directors as Nanni Moretti and Gianni Amelio but also Gabriele Salvatores and Maurizio Nichetti" (Gieri 1999, 45).
Still trying to get him to the Ministry, Gino drives through Albania's countryside, while Michele sleeps in the back of the car. They stop at a nearby shop, as Gino gets out of the car few Albanian youths ask him, "italiano, cigaretta?" Gino enters a different place here, a butcher shop, where an Albanian man is chopping some cattle meat. Gino asks first for a coffee, then for a telephone, and then for a toilet, and none of his requests are met. His requests are 'out of order' and his beliefs misplaced. The scene is a further example of the absurdity of Gino's pursuits and expectations given the conditions and places he finds himself in. He increasingly becomes a dislocated person but fails to realize it. The interplay between character and places here, acts as a magnifier of Gino's own inner state of 'disorder,' and carries out the function of making the viewers censure his actions. By virtue of comparison, the level of Gino's internal disorder is made the more problematic when compared to the consequential level of disorder of Albania's change of regime, and he therefore becomes the primary target of reprehension.
Michele awakens in the Suzuki while Gino comes out of the butcher shop and asks a dubious policeman to watch over his vehicle, before taking Michele with him to urinate in the fileds. Gino's subsequent dialectics with Michele mark the beginning of his hostile and change to father-like relationship with the character of Michele. Gino speaks to Michele in the Italian language, though we still assume that he is not certain if Michele understand fully what he is told: "Se mi pisci un'altra volta in macchina t'ammazzo. Se tu mi ubbidisci, non succede niente... Mo' che sei presidente di fabbrica pensi che puoi fare i tuoi comodi?" Michele doesn't what to be pulled by the arm and, to Gino's surprise, says to him in Italian: "Lasciatemi stare." Gino replays: "Ma com'è che parli italiano? Ma chi sei? Chi cazzo sei?" while Franco Piersanti's the stringed music begins. Then noticing Michele's apprehension, Gino moderates his tone: "Ma che c'è , hai paura? Presidente lo sai che tu a me mi puoi licenziare?" Shortly after, when he sees that the wheels of his Suzuki have been stolen, he starts yelling and threatening Albanians' bystanders, who witness silently: "Dov'è il poliziotto? [...] Tirate fuori le ruote o vi denuncio! Vi metto in galera, uno per uno. Ma mi capite quando parlo? Ve la faccio pagare, straccioni, morti di fame, albanesi del cazzooo...!"
Michele is first threatened not to mess-up Gino's car seat again, with his urine, he is ordered to obey and do as he is told, and then is reminded that being the president of the shoe factory does not allow him to do as he pleases. When becoming apprehensive Gino changes his approach and starts adulating him. Gino here is characterized as a brute, authoritative, and disrespectful young man, who expects obedience and submission from an already scourged and quite harmless Michele, who could well be his father. Gino's abuse of Michele is symbolic once again of Italy and Albania's own abuse at the hands of corrupt politicians turned into selfish dictators at one time and cynical businessmen at another. Furthermore Amelio's treatment provides an eloquent commentary to Italy's own socio-political scenario of the nineties. The widespread aggressive strategies and corrupt schemes pursued by the selfish politicians and businessmen alike are an eloquent testimony to Amelio's accurate choice of theme and characterization. Gino is a product of these immoral trends. When Michele starts replying to him in Italian it is as if Gino were given the opportunity to realize that he is in some way hurting himself. Italy's recent years of the so-called "tangentopoli" scandal, initiated by a former policeman turned into judge, corroborates Amelio's choice in depicting such state of affairs and its contemptible characters. The beginning of 'Clean Hands' by Antonio Di Pietro in March 1992 marked the "beginning of a great shake-up of Italian society and politics, which had a considerable impact on the economy as well" (Zamagni, "Evolution of the Economy," Italy since 1945, 53) Interestingly in Lamerica a policeman is also at 'the wheel' of Albania's pursuit of restoration and order, the same one who puts Gino into jail and gives him a chance of redemption in exchange of some collaboration aimed at placing under arrest the corrupt Albanian minister.
Unable to make use of his Suzuki, Gino finds himself trapped into the same crowded bus with Michele. The latter wants to reach his beloved family in Sicily. Conversely Gino is blind to the conditions of his surroundings, due to his corrupt pursuit. When trying to stop the bus, with the words "Fermo stronzo!" addressed to the driver, and get Michele and himself off from it, Gino is confronted by the young Albanians, and fails for he is afraid to react. On the bus he meets the secondary character of Ismail, a friendly Albanian who, like many other Albanians, is overly fond of Italy and entertains hopes of settling himself there. Gino is visibly bored and, again, somewhat disgusted by Ismail's apparent simple-mindedness, despite the friendliness displayed by this one. "[...] Mi piace italiani, amici italiani; Baudo, Frizzi, Celentano [...] Basta cnatare una canzone italiana e comunisti: se hai visto televisione italiana, tu sei spia. Allora prigione." Gino promptly and purposely asks then: "E tu niente prigione?" "Io niente prigione, sono intelligente, furbo," replies Ismail with a candid smile. Television is mentioned for the second time here, after having been seen set up in the background of two earlier scenes, and mentioned in the first by an apparently surprised Gino, to be exact, at the hotel's entrance. While the two earlier scenes visibly remind the viewer of how strong the presence of Italian television is in Albania, in the latter scene Gino is provided with a verbal testimony of its effect on the Albanian people as given by a young Albanian. The power of the media and its exploitation at the hand of political establishments is noted here. While television is presented as the culprit for deceivingly portraying Italy as the promised-land, the Albanians on the other hand are not spared rebuke, for Amelio seems to make them somewhat responsible for not putting to use their alleged 'intelligenza e furbizia,' but prefer instead to let themselves be carried away by simple-minded credulity. The character of Ismail, whose name comes from the bible records, being the name of a disproved son of one of Abraham's concubines, becomes both a praise of genuineness and a warning for ingenuousness.
On the bus Michele speaks to a young Albanian, seated in front of him, who listens and then smiles without uttering a word. The character of Michele, an non-professional and first time actor in the film in the neorealist style, speaks in Sicilian dialect opposed to the standard Italian lines given to him in the original script: "Brutta 'a guerra; uno parti e lascia 'a famiglia ca' ci promittianu u lavuru… Rosa spettava u picciriddu e piangia. Ma iu ci dissi 'che scappu e vignu ddu ttia!" Michele here reveals the deceit perpetrated on him and on Italians alike by the fascists. As Vitti puts it:
"Michele fa da maestro all'allievo arrongante (Gino) e alle nuove generazioni senza memoria storica [...] La prosperità economica raggiunta dall'Italia invece di creare una nuova cultura migliore e un più alto senso civico ha creato l'attaccamento ai mezzi di consumo" (251).
In other words the severe experiences of the past, instead of teaching the new generations few important historical lessons, have altogether been tossed aside, and yet the mentality somewhat survives. Materialism and the deceitful appearance it gives are both once again the primary object of cult. Though very similar (and the parallel works in Amelio's film), there may be some difference in tones of feelings between the Albanians wanting to go to Italy in the 90s, and the Italians wanting to go to America in the reconstruction period of the 40s and 50s, when considered for example the increased power of TV and relinquishing of older values in place of increasingly ethereal-like ones. If Michele "fa da maestro" in Amelio's film, then his cinema is an attempt to retrieve its original national reference function and institution-like assurgency. In such a perspective cinema may be seen as a mean of social progress.
Through the secondary character of Ismail, Amelio continues his discourse on Italy's present state of affairs, as perceived by the Albanian neighbours who seem to prostrate themselves in a religious-like acquiescence to the altar of the television medium.
Ismail asks Gino: "Chi è più importante in Italia, Papa o Presidente?"
"Tu che dici?" asks Gino in reply, apparently indifferent to the issue.
"Io dico Papa, perché Papa sempre si vede in televisione, ma Presidente poco. Una volta il nostro dittatore dice che televisione fa male al popolo. Io quando vengo in Italia mi faccio cristiano. Lo trovo il lavoro se mi faccio cristiano?"
"Come no?" replies Gino with sarcasm.
"Tu dove abiti, Roma, Milano, Bari?" continues then Ismail.
After listening to the secondary character's words, a critical viewer may ask whether or not Amelio here is trying to raise a political question in slightly different words: 'Chi ha più potere' or 'chi comanda in Italia?' And then give a possible answer in Ismail's intention to become a Christian in order to get a job. It is indicative that such an idea is being addressed to the main character, Gino: a young Italian and assumingly Christian who is gone adrift? In addition, or rather consequentially if you will, the scene draws attention to the considerable responsibility that rests on leading institutions, governmental and religious alike. Furthermore the fact that such dialogue takes place in the crowed bus makes it ironically look like a pilgrimage to the holy land, which one must assume is at the heart of the 'promised-land.' The 'certo nascosto' yet evident 'moralismo cattolico' does not convince once again the Italian critic Guido Aristarco (Cinema Nuovo, numero 6, 1994). Nevertheless the substantial absence of religious institutions and their failure in providing moral guidance to a populace left like sheep without a shepherd is well illustrated in Lamerica. The atonement of Gino is thus a symbolic atonement for all in one ay or another.
In Lamerica the task of re-establishing order is entrusted to few well-motivated police force. The Albanian police halt the bus trek, by order of an undefined Albanian government who wants to stop the exodus towards Italy of the Albanians people. Few people are captured and detained, and gunshots are heard. Michele is afraid to leave the bus, for he believes he will be killed if he does. Gino leads him out and demands help and protection from the Albanian police on the basis that he is Italian and therefore a foreigner. Amelio then cuts to the second dialogue between Gino and Michele as they get far from the havoc. Full of gratitude Michele tells Gino that he saved his life, that if the "milizia" (militia) would have captured him they would have executed him for he is a "disertore" (deserter). He tells Gino his real name, Talarico Michele, that he is a Sicilian, and that he has a wife and child in Sicily. He says that from now on he wants to stick to Gino so that he doesn't get lost again. Then when he asks how far Sicily is, Gino gets annoyed at him. A long shot of houses in ruins follows and then a medium shot of Gino and Michele seated one beside each other on the street side.
Michele asks: "Vuliti mangiari? Ma che c'è scrittu alla muntagna? Mancu vui sapiti leggere? C'è scrittu 'Duce Mussolini'. Qua siamo in Abbruzzo o vicino a Roma?"
"A Napoli," replies Gino somewhat annoyed.
"Mi pigliati ppi fissa, a Napuli c'è lu mari! [...] Iu partii a matina, e stu mascalzoni nasci lla sira. Mo' ara tre anni, no mi sbagliu, quattru anni."
Gino gets even more annoyed by what he believes to be a doddering old man: "Quando la finisci? Vecchio rimbambito. Ti sei guardato in faccia? La guerra è finita da cinquant'anni. Magari tua moglie è morta."
The misunderstanding between the two continues fostered by what turns into a nasty and grotesque joke played by history's past and present events. While Michele's character is undeniably portrayed as a once Italian soldier now old man, who has lost the proper sense of time and space, as a heavy mark left on him by Italy and neighbouring Balkans' past history, nevertheless he has not lost his senses. Talking abut Michele's character, Vitti writes that "per sopravvivere in tempi incerti e sotto dittature l'unica salvezza è la follia" (252). Whether Michele's madness is real or pretended does not matter in Lamerica, what matters is the efficacy of Amelio's plot's artifice. Michele is able to interpret what the viewer now may perceive as the writing on the 'wall,' a Latin expression for "Duce Mussolini," and thus rebukes Gino for expecting he mistake the mountains for plain sea. Such an error would be one of enormous size, borrowing a metaphor from the picture. Gino puts Michele bluntly in front of his present reality, that of an old man whose wife may even have died. Yet he fails to understand and give any useful meaning to the bigger events and picture that brings them now together. In other words Gino fails to comprehend his own present reality. Such failure is a mutually giant mistake on Gino's part, as large as the mountain they stare at or the sea they speak of. Lamerica seems to do so intentionally and become itself the bigger picture and meaning of such cautionary tale.
In the following scene the boastful display of wealth in a quiz show, aired on Italian television reaching the Balkans, and the actual life of the Albanian people represents a scornful contrast. In a shop, while a number of visibly destitute Albanians are watching television, Gino asks an impoverished shopkeeper if he can get any food for him and Michele. The shopkeeper shows him the only ration available, a locally made beverage. At the same time on television, in the background, the host of the program "Il prezzo è giusto" (The Price is Right) asks one of her contending quests whether a Backyard Set's right price is one million one hundred ninety seven thousand lire (Lire 1,197,000) or one million two hundred thirteen thousand lire (Lire 1,213,000). What the TV host and almost simultaneously the shopkeeper say is both grotesquely amusing and disturbingly sad. The lack of goods to satisfy basic needs, of the Albanian people, and the apparently indiscriminated surplus of the Italian people, are put in a problematicly tension in the scene. The sight of the surplus, as seen on Italian television, is theatrically made to suffice to the Albanian viewer's comprehesive needs.
Shortly after, one of the Albanians watching TV offers Gino his own bread and cheese. Gino first refuses and then inevitably accepts, but doesn't seem to have any money left to give him in exchange. From a viewer's perspective Gino's uncanny presence there becomes a reason for derision with respect to Italy's sound state of affairs, as portrayed on TV, as well as a diffamatory example of an Italian's actual practices behind the scenes. Gino's quest for riches through a premeditated exploitation of an already bleeding Albania, and his increasing misfortune and downfall instead, raise once again questions on the influence, and import, of dubious television programs passed onto the Albanian and Italian viewers alike. Undoubtedly much of what is seen on television is unhelpful to the Albanian people's actual life toil. Yet it seems to represent a necessary chimera, though excruciating dream of wealth and well being, powerful enough to lure them into an impossible trek. Thus a direct link may be drawn between what is seen on TV and the one decision made by the Albanian audiences. "Le idee che gli Albanesi hanno dell'Italia sono il risultato dei programmi televisivi trasmessi dalla televisione italiana" (Vitti 255).
The previous scene with the Italian television playing in the background is the last direct reference made to the medium. Thus Amelio has incorporated the element of an illusory and non-contingent reality that portrayed by the Italian television. While TV has nurtured the 'Italian dream' in the Albanian people, their exodus to Italy, far from meeting their expectations, was often broken before they could lay their foot on the land. Through his film Amelio provides the viewer with a naked eye on a specific reality. A quite comprehensive look at the other side of the ethereal screen: an impoverished audience, gone completely gullible, feeding on a ghostly dream and yet spell binding illusion of an old trick-worthy of the arts of white magic. In Amelio's film to the Albania's credulous and lazy mentality have concurred the Fascist propaganda in the first place and the propaganda of Italian television in the second as Bondanella pointed out. On the other hand the Albanians are not spared condemnation for their mental drowsiness and lack of good judgement. They are often portrayed as stationary or aimless (frequently seated on their butt, or springing on a whim in chaotic pursuit of an unavailable manna) and yet as generous people willing to share their bread even with their exploiter. In contrast to the severe responsibility attributed to television and its motionless viewers, Amelio's film attempts to unmask the imposturous façade and reveal the naked truth underlying the illusion. He resists the current trend of yielding to an impoverished state of mind, by enacting a contingent and topical reality in all its miserable ugliness.
In a style worthy of a neorealist master "Amelio's cinema, much alike Moretti's, offers a possibility of resistance and indeed of opposition to the serial tales produced by the never-ending memory of mass communication and its virtual realities. Both directors refocus their tales, as their gazes move from the mass to the individual, from the panorama to the detail in the attempt to retrieve truth, time, and thus history" (Gieri 1999, 53).

Gino's loss of identity and rebirth on the boat to "Lamerica"

Further on into the film Amelio shows one particular Albanian youth who will physically waste-away to death. While on the crowed truck taking them to the harbour where they shall board the boat to "Lamerica," Michele attempts to share a piece of bread with this young man. Whereas in Lamerica the only explicit death is that of the single youth on the truck, the powerful though unstated allusion made by Amelio's camera to death is overwhelming, particularly in the final scene when reviewing what for many has been the last bitter smile on the faces of young and old alike. The many tragic deaths of refugees and displaced people on the Italian coast in the 90s (and western world's coasts alike, from Europe to North America) is overwhelming testimony to Amelio's topical choice of subject matter and relative accurate treatment. In fact the refugee problem now affects entire populations and has become a global issue (see Loescher's Beyond Charity: International Cooperation and the Global Refugee Crisis, 1993). The arrogant Gino who has been uttering treaths and boasting his Italian identity as a shield, shall himself become a refugee and experience the bitterness of such condition which will eventually lead him to a moral rebirth. "Il personaggio di Gino, ingenuo, arrogante, ignorante, presuntuoso [...] In Albania tutti i suoi valori verranno azzerati da una diversa realtà sociale e dovr ricominciare, quasi nascere dal nulla" (Vitti 250).
Still in the fortuitous residence, in a separate and quiet room, an unexpectedly remorseful Gino brings the bread and cheese, received by the generous Albanian, to Michele and cheers him up after having berated at him-when telling him earlier that his wife might have even died since the war ended, fifty years ago. After finally making him bite at the bread and cheese he tells Michele that he too is Sicilian, and that once they get to Reggio Calabria they will board on the ferry and at last get to Sicily. His next words though reveal the insincere motivation behind his apparent remorse:
"Presidente come si chiama suo figlio?"
"Giovanni," says Michele.
"Quanti anni ha?"
"Ha quattr'anni."
"Allora è bello grande."
His being agreeable now to Michele's form of madness is a conceited tactic to get his figurehead man to do as they have planned earlier with Fiore. In fact after contacting Fiore and getting the bad news on the projected exploit, Gino will selfishly try to get rid of the burndensome 'presidente.' On the other hand the honest and generous Michele will come to his comfort, and teach him an inestimable lesson of solidarity when he promises "io non vi lascio da solo ora che avete bisogno." This same lesson is at the core of Lamerica's moral message to the Italian and global viewer alike.
The character of Michele, consistent with the unwavering conviction (Amelio's allegorical use of a form of madness on the character's part) that only few years have elapsed since the war broke-out, still resolutely adheres to the original goal of rejoining his family in Sicily. On the truck crowed with Gino, Michele, and all young Albanian men, standing tightly one beside each other, some want to try on Gino's trendy Italian sunglasses while others review 'Italian commodities' such as hot water, beautiful whores, cars, and so forth. From their expressions they seem to savour the idea of already enjoyed what has been out-of-reach to them for many years, as if they were about to finally pluck a coveted fruit in the 'promised-land.' Michele chats with a particularly run-down young Albanian man as they both sit at the bottom of the box at the other people's feet. Michele asks if they have already passed Naples, and the young Albanian replies that they are headed for the harbour. Gino then adds: "Dove andate in America? Ci vonnu i soldi [...] l'atto di richiamu, se no nun vi fannu sbarcari alla frontiera [...] 'Na volta andavanu a Patterson, Boston [...] Laggiù è n'altra cosa."
Here past and present are intertwined through Michele's allegorical madness. In fact while Gino's sunglasses seem to materialize the Albanian's dream of setting their hands on a symbol of the Italian benessere, their "Lamerican" dream, Michele speaks to the run-down Albanian of the times when Italians for the same reasons would emigrate for the United States of America, and how much such a prospect represented a luxury for those who were offered admittance to the land through a relative or friendly employer. Though they are all steeped together on the same makeshift truck, each key character lives in a mentally different space-time frame of their own. Gino finds himself trapped in what he still considers a temporary mishap along his otherwise planned business trip, while Michele is convinced that he is in Italy and that the Second World War is still on, and finally the young Albanian men believe they are headed to a luxurious land of opportunities and comfortable life style, as portrayed on Italian television. Though not allegorical, the Albanians too seem affected by a form of madness, for they are not made to question the two Italian's odd presence there, steeped with them on a ramshackle truck. Yet Amelio employs no conspicuous special effects, other than narrative artifices and metaphors, to tell the foolery of the story unfolding before the viewer's eyes. The allegory works to Amelio's purpose, that of making Gino journey backwards while believing to go forward. Gino's going forward is dependant on his having already covered an amount of distance of a past journey, and shall therefore realize that he cannot escape such truthful fact, and Michele is there to remind him of it. "Spiro/Michle rappresentano i due estremi: Il passato che non si cancella, che sempre ritorna, e il presente che lo ignora ma ne "sente" la presenza. Che cerca comunque di eluderlo" (Bettin 19). He shall re-discover his roots and the strength of his unconventional identity as the basis on which to build any formal one. In other words the human values Michele has been implicitly teaching him. Such a superlative accomplishment requires a religious-like symbolic death (in Gino's case with respect to his 'sin' of lack of historical memory) and rebirth to a new life, that is, to a moral renewal. Thus Amelio is not concerned with justifying every action and transition in the narrative, but rather cares to stage the key movements of the epical journey in a spontaneous fashion resorting mainly to the character's words and dialogue to justify the action and advance it forward. The spontaneity of the non-professional actors, who are actual Albanians, as well as the innate characterization of the elderly Sicilian Carmelo di Mazzarelli as Michele, the original and natural Albanian location, the language, whether Albanian, Italian, Italian dialect, or broken Italian, all contribute to render Amelio's film a quite close-to-authentic representation of a true story, enacted by its potentially real protagonists within the natural topography of the land. The treatment and play of opposites between the past and the present, America and "Lamerica," the elderly and the young, the illusion of riches and the crudeness of poverty, the unrealistic expectations of freedom and well-being and the tragical awakening to the reality of slavery and death, are at the basis of Lamerica's strength in plot and theme.
On the truck, one of the young Albanians is said to be a good soccer player. Once in Italy, he wants to become a "giocatore di pallone," most probably like those watched often on Italian television. The prospect of such a glamorous life has been everyone's dream at one time or another in both Italy and the Balkans. Gino replies that in the best of circumstances, in Italy "vi fanno fare i lavapiatti," and then sarcastically adds, "venite, venite… già ci stanno i marocchini, i polacchi." Totally undisturbed Ismail answers by saying "noi facciamo tutto; meglio fare i lavapiatti che morire di fame." The answer is somewhat socking for put in such basic terms the impoverished Albanians cannot be blamed for making such a choice. Yet Gino needs to learn this very lesson, one of humility, and what it means to win ones bread. As they speak the truck runs through Albanian's owe inspiring mountainous region while the introspective cello-played score accompanies the action, giving the journey a sort of transcendental feeling. The composition of this particular image in Lamerica makes the protagonists on the truck look like the tiny single piece of a vast and unending puzzle, the spec of a bigger and equally inscrutable scheme. Justapposed to this rather mysterious element there is Gino awareness of the disappointment awaiting in Italy his Albanians fellow travelers. By telling them so, he also provides a straightforward explanation to one of the motivations at the basis of his own corrupt business trip: his inability, or better unwillingness, to humbly adapt equally to bad times as to good times. Italians like Gino and Firoe may live what appears to be an enviously luxurious and liberal life style, in the eyes of the neighbouring Albania. Yet they uncunningly give themselves to abuse and mismanagement, careless of the detriment to others, thus failing to adapt in the advent of a calamitous turnaround, the real possibility of which, Gino's own downfall becomes an eloquent and ominous prediction in Lamerica. In contrast, Michele's willingness of adapting himself, despite his displacement, ends up making him a winner, and so does the Albanians' initial display of a humble, opposed to arrogant and presumptuous, attitude. Gino's unwillingness to humble himself, as suggested by his derogatory reference made to "marocchini, polacchi," is gradually turned into a necessity first by the loss of his car, then the stripping of his clothes, his passport, thus his privileged Italian identity and false sense of power gained form material means and conventional attributes. In Lamerica Gino's initial physical journey as a wealthy Italian businessman turns into the searching of one's own soul, as he becomes one of many displaced faces in an equal crowd of refugees. Thus Gino's journey necessarily becomes a cautionary tale, the cinematic treatment of both a collective and personal story aimed at imparting a lesson on human values. While Amelio's film chronicles an ugly chapter of both the Balkan's and Italian recent history, it also functions as a sort of house-light, ushering the viewer to the inner compartments of an often foggy and unscreenable territory that of one's own soul. Lamerica is a thematically contemporary film, about the exodus of refugees and/or displaced people, Italians and Albanians alike, in search of a better life. The already widespread so-called 'Global Refugee Crisis,' further suggested in Lamerica by Gino's mention of "marocchini and polacchi," has made the refugee problem a full grown problem of our time and brought it to the attention of the United Nations, where it is now treated as part of the world's bigger issues (Loescher 1993).
The contrast between opposites continues as the Albanians sing Toto Cutugno's song Sono un italiano, as if anticipating their expectation of embracing the new citizenship. Unaware Michele asks what song is it that they are singing, and not comprehending its 'modern' sounds starts singing Rosamunda, an old Sicilian song. The run-down Albanian has no strength to sing and he ultimately dies, and the truck stops. He is laid on the box as the others get off. Left on the truck with the dead man, Michele vainly, and somewhat naively, tries to feed some bread to the dead young man. Though not mentioning that the young Albanian man is already dead, Antonio Vitti includes this scene in what he calls "lo svolgimento del tema del pane." As Vitti writes, while Michele "conosce il significato di un pezzo di pane, Gino e Fiore sfruttano il prossimo senza guadagnarsi il pane con il proprio sudore" (255). On the ground, in conversation with Gino, Ismail is made to draw the following conclusion: "In Italia nessuno muore come lui. I giovani muoiono negli incidenti di macchina. Io vado sposare una ragazza di Bari. Fare molti figli, e non parlare più albanese. Così i miei figli scordano che sono albanese." Ismail is clearly not proud of being an Albanian. He looks forward in marrying an Italian girl, change his identity, have a family, and get rid of any trace of his previous heritage altogether. Their 'Italian dream' has the gauge of a popular song heard on Italian television, Sono un italiano by Toto Cutugno, which verbalizes their wish to relinquish a valuless background and take on a more promising Italian identity, while the Italian immigrants had a different perspective on "Lamerica" of their time, for they brought along with them their traditions and values through which they looked and acted on the new world, as suggested by Michele's singing of Rosamunda in his Sicilian dialect. Ismail argument is that to him the Albanian birthright, legacy and tradition, has no worth anymore, for in comparison Italian youths enjoy even a worthier death, dying on the streets while driving fancy cars and in a state of ecstasy after having partied together all night enjoying some life. Amelio seems to juxtapose two different destinies, with the same end result, to comment on the absurdity of the opposition made by Ismail, for what is turning into a social disaster in one place, Italy, in comparison becomes a cumulatively worthier life style in another, Albania. Most of the young Albanians too don't seem to know what it means to earn one's bread for they entertain a empty dream which puts them "under the spell of a consumer society" though being poor, thus making them morally even poorer. (Bondanella 453)
The decision to proceed and carry the dead Albanian with them and bury him in the next town is indication of how basic human values are fundamentally equal and not negotiable, and how in direst circumstances the similarities outweigh the differences. The scene takes on darker tones, both literally and metaphorically, as it starts raining and they approach the next town. Gino and Michele get off the truck, and visibly exhausted reach a nearby wall, where an Albanian kid is already crouched against, and lean on it as the rain continues to weaken them. They ultimately get into a run down residence, where women and children live, and are given a room with a single bed. A totally shattered Gino lays into the bed, while a still adaptable and generous Michele, before laying himself on the floor utters the following words: "Siamo andati in guerra. C'hannu promesso pani e lavoru e inveci morimu di fami... Ma 'e cose debbonu cambiari, quando arriviamo a casa debbonu cambiari." Michele here reiterates the deceit perpetrated by the Fascist euphoria, of which he has been a victim. Yet his words imply more then that, for by saying 'things must change once we get home' he implicitly expresses a future intention of casting the fraud up at the culprits, thus providing evidence for a due change on the way the country's business is run.
As Gino wakes up he hungrily devours the milk and bread left for him on the bedside table. His conditions and consequent behaviour appear severely worsened. He has visibly lost the look of his fashionable Italian style enjoyed at the beginning of his business trip. In line with the implicit teaching imparted by Michele, later on Gino will realize that the person he regards as the vecchio rimbambito has brought him the milk and bread by once again humbly performing work for the people managing the place. Amelio then cuts to a medium shot of a talented young girl, who apparently is not even in her teens yet, silhouetted in the foreground by the light coming in through the window at the end of a long corridor. She is engaged in a dance new-age style, probably in imitation of what is seen on Italian television, for an older woman asks Gino if he likes her, and thus to get her on Italian television. From the scene and the woman's words, Italian television (if not television in general) once again comes to light as a sort of sanctuary, an elitist paradise, inhabited only by a gifted and superior race of people (as the little girl seems to be singling herself out), and forbidden to the ungifted and general masses that are nevertheless left with the consolation of watching in adulation (as the older woman and other bystanders do). As Gino proceeds in his walk through the residence he meets Michele who is carrying a table on his back. He says he is lending a hand that will earn them some bread. Rather than being grateful to him Gino, who feels strong in virtue of the money he has still left, shows contempt for the older man's attitude and dissuades him from such work. In the following scene Amelio puts the two characters, one representing the past and the other the present, emblematically face to face, as they sit at a table enjoying some food. The exchange of words between the two depicts one as the bearer of enduring and endearing qualities and the other as the bearer of fraudulent and untrustworthy ones. Michele says that it must be expensive to eat and enjoy the place as they are doing. Gino replies that he must not worry about money anymore, for he is "Presidente, e deve mettere solo firme."
"Ma perché aviti scelto a mmia?" asks Michele.
"Perché il presidente è un lavoro delicato, e di questi tempi non ci si può fidare più di nessuno. Perché ci serviva una persona onesta," answers Gino.
"Come posso ricambiare?" wonders Michele.
"Basta che ti stai quieto e zitto, e non dici in giro che lavori con noi: che la gente gelosa," explaines Gino.
"Meno male che vi incuntrai," concludes Michele.
We then cut to Gino whom after a couple of attempts is able to contact Italy and speak to Fiore. The story is in its third day, and Gino tells Fiore that tomorrow he will get the 'old man' to Tirana, at the Ministry. He continues telling Fiore "se ti racconto quello che mi è successo… È tutto a posto, non ti proccupare," but is suddenly somewhat struck dumb, and in a close-up shot which reveals his increasing dejection, he remains silently attached to the receiver listening to what Fiore has to say. Fiore's words are not heard but their meaning is noticeably alluded to by Gino's expression. All the while Michele re-lives the immigrant experience, seated on a bench beside two other women in wait he asks if they too need to make a call, whether they have relatives living far away and if these have a telephone at home. Paradoxically from the neighbouring Albania Gino experiences a deeper sense of alienation than the Italian immigrants contacting thei relatives in America. While Michele relies on old traditional values such as good will and hard work, Gino soon shows how beneath his arrogance looms a weaker character unfit for survival.
In the following exterior scene a disheartened Gino walks the street beside Michele. The latter asks what is wrong and if he can be of any help. Gino says, "Non sei più presidente, hai perso il posto, questo è successo." The character of Michele is then given words, which sound similar to a commentary on two opposite attitudes that have swept Italian history for decades: "Io lu sapia, io c'avia ragionatu; e come si può guadagnari u pani mettendo la firma? Grazie lo stesso..."
"Manco io ce l'ho il lavoro; finito, siamo a spasso tutti e due," replies Gino.
Michele's words then add to the aforesaid thesis, "Compari, i bracci li teniamu; adessu c'arriviamu al mio paesi, magiamu, ci riposamu e se facciamu in tempu andiamo a raccogliere le olive."
Gino stares, now both shocked and probably for the first time fully sentient, at Michele, without uttering a word. Gino, who has been previously berating the 'old man,' is now left with no words in reply to Michele's logic reasoning that in order to earn one's bread some form of labour is required. Expecting to earn money by simply putting down two to four signatures per day, sounds suspiciously easy to Michele. The common sense shown in his words, though his ideas such as the gathering of olive crop the old fashion way may sound antiquated, confirm the soundness of his attitudes and dependability of his good old values. The two previous sequences are also a strong testimony to the plight of a young Italian, as personified by the character of Gino. In Lamerica Gino comes from Sicily, from southern Italy, which is notoriously plagued with the highest rates of unemployment in a country already ranking high among its European partners on matters of unemployment and job crisis. Since the "ecomonic miracle" and the years of "distributive struggle" the unemployment rate has steadily grown in Italy, going form a 4.9% in 1970 to a 7.5% in 1980 to an 11.5% in 1999 (Zamagni 51). Yet in Lamerica Gino and Fiore's corrupt business scheme is not portrayed as a necessary result for the frequent loss of "il lavoro" Gino alludes to, but rather the very cause for such worsening trend. Michele reminds Gino of the potentiality for change when referring to their "bracci" as one of their biggest available resources. In Amelio's film (and cinema if considering that in Ladro di bambini the institutions called to protect minors fail to carry out their moral and statuary obligation) Italy's worsening conditions, included the widespread unemployment, does not justify easy solutions nor Gino's contempt for hard work, but rather warningly condemns it. These negatively portrayed attitudes amount to the identity Gino must loose before any change to the better is made possible. Amelio's cinema seems therefore to also reseamble the nearealist tradition in shaping political and social realities according to a more universal moral idea (Marcus 1999, 67). The viewer of Lamerica is importuned by the Amelio's 'reportage' and moral annotations, the more so if he is Italian as Gianfranco Bettin candidly maintains:
"Lamerica, film potente e struggente, visionario e didascalico insieme […] duro reportage da un paese vicinissimo ma tenuto a distanza, non ha avuto grande fortuna di pubblico. È un film che scuote, appunto, che apre domande e, ancor più, ferite. [...] Paese di molti cialtroni, di moltissimi indifferenti, di uno sterminato numero di ipocriti, l'Italia-improbabile America di tanti immigrati-non ha davvero capito il film di Gianni Amelio. Non voleva né poteva, perché non c'è lieto fine (a favore degli ipocriti), non c'è mistificazione (a favore dei cialtroni)." (18-19)
The Albanian girl connecting Gino to Italy through the phone says "Italia" when referring him to the line. As a geographical place, Italy is absent throughout the film, and yet is constantly referred to, while it sends deaf signals when connected to through the phone. The 'reading' of present Italy occurs on the interior level by mimetically putting oneself in the main character's predicament. The choice of negating the audibility of Fiore's response at the other end of the phone line puts the focus entirely on Gino's character and the introspective experience he is going through. Thus from a viewer's perspective such a cinematic technique highlights the sense of abandonment the character must feel, and sends a signal of absence if not of outright betrayal on Fiore's part. Considering the age-old Questione del sud (see Italy since 1945) in the Italian socio-political panorama, this scene may also remind of the absence of the State as felt, and often protested by, many southern Italians. In fact Gino's words "siamo a spasso," are very popular in southern Italy, and have taken on a proverbially dreadful meaning throughout the years. Yet in Lamerica the victims of political or social abuse are never spared condemnation for the share of responsibility they hold in their lives. When the still quite heartless Gino tries to leave Michele with the man managing the residence, this one asks why he doesn't bring Michele in Italy along with him. Gino indifferently avoids his question and says that Michele can work for him, that he has fought Communist dictatorship and Albanians must be grateful to men like him. The man replies that they were better off when Communist ruled. Gino insists on giving him money and the man reluctantly accepts. When Gino and Michele watch television together, Michele says in what may be an intended metaphor that he has never seen "il cinema così piccolo." Oblivious to Michele's comments Gino keeps swaying the man's will, saying that the place in which they presently find themselves is good for him to stay. Michele fails to understand what to him must sound as an awkward proposition in the least, and replies that he already has a home. In his stubbornness Gino fails to acknowledge the seriousness of his own predicament. The next exchange between Michele and Gino is particularly premonitory of Gino's own calamity, and resounds in the viewers mind at the end of the film as a reminder of the dire consequences of preferring arrogance and villainy in place of humility and solidarity. Still not comprehending Gino's perspective, Michele adds: "Ma vi ho ditto qualcosa, che vi ho fatto di mali? Vi perditi di coraggiu, mo' che siamo arrivati. In Sicilia ci dobbiam'andari insiemi. Io non vi lascio da solo ora che aviti bisogno." Still arrogant and foolish Gino replies: "Io non ho bisogno di nessuno" (which to the viewer sound like 'the famous last words'). Michele is interested in maintaining a good relationship with his fellow countryman, more so now that he has also become his travelling partner. If there is any wrongdoing that needs to be corrected he readily enquires on the matter willing to amend. There is a solid sense of solidarity in Michele's words, even an intended sense of fatherhood, as suggested by the paternally assessing words "ora che avete bisogno," rather than simple camaraderie. He expresses his firm intention of not leaving him, as if their destinies were now inseparably tied together. The moment in the film is particularly touching in illustrating the older character's lesson on unselfishness in utter contrast to Gino's example of egoism. On the other hand the fact that the conversation the spectator witnessed takes place between two Italians stranded in a chaotic Albania, lodged in a wrecked residence, and sitting in front of the Italian television (though not seen), has much to comment on the moral state of the characters' own country of origin. Gino is conscious of being stranded in a country that is not his own, and yet attempts to further abandon his fellow countryman and flee the place by himself. An earlier attempt to have Michele stay at the Mother Theresa Nun's centre was unsuccessfully painful, and now Gino callously tries to negotiate Michele's stay at the new place. He starts to realize that his money has little value, for he is willing to give it all away, and yet he offers it to the man running the place to convince him to keep Michele there. Bettin writes: "Nel rapporto tra i due personaggi e tra le due epoche si analizza in realtà anche un rapporto interno a ciascuno di noi, certamente interno alla psicologia del nostro Paese" (19).
Gino's selfish motivations are made the more object of the viewer's reproach when compared to Michele's promise of solidarity. Such reproachful intent is compensated by the almost immediate penalty Gino is inflicted when after abandoning Michele he ends up in the police's hands. Unlike Michele, Gino never mentions any of his family members; he is completely made oblivious to the past including family ties. Fiore makes the only mention of Gino's father, in one of the earlier scenes when recalling the successful fraud perpetrated in Nigeria. Gino's lack of affective and soon legal (for he will be stripped of all his belonging and even passport) ties to Italy, mirrors the degree of moral void and loss of direction many in his own country must have fallen into. Bettin refers to Gino as "uno dei giovani del nostro peresente, ormai dimentichi del nostro passato [...] perché nessuno glielo racconta o insegna" (18). Thus Gino's attitudes and behaviour cannot but be univocally doomed to failure. The allegory enacted by the two opposite characters leads to the conclusion that Italy's fifty years of alleged industrialization and social progress haven't bred a sound and healthier generation of citizens, even the role of cinema has been visibly overtaken and reduces as suggested by Michele's words, "non ho mai visto il cinema così piccolo." Not to often can be said of a film what Fofi says of Amelio's film, "Lamerica è da proporre nelle scuole" (Panorama 1994). Amelio's own body of work is directed at restoring such honorable function cinema had, as a teaching tool and medium of national reference. Principles of elementary didactics both at the collective and individual level abound in Lamerica. Michele's unselfish spirit and his sense of communality, though antiquated to Gino's eyes, make him fit for survival and the only candidate able to provide a glimmer of hope for others, if any. Amelio makes use of opposites, bringing two different perspectives together by making them 'travel' on the same road and head to the same destination. It is a journey into Italy's social history. Along the way the two character's perspectives are inevitably confronted and the weakest one is revealed. Thus only by dismissing the weakest one and adopting the other perspective is survival negotiable and progress made possible. The prospect of adopting a more successful perpective is handed to Gino by the allegorically mad character of Michele, who becomes a teacher and father figure at one time.
Despite the 'glamorous' use of Panavision (which has been interpreted by critics both negatively and positively-see Aristarco, Vitti, Bettin), the almost exclusive use of straight cuts made by Amelio in Lamerica adds to its undistorted and realistically portrayed sequence of events, in a cinematic technique that seems to exclude only the irrelevant temps mort. In a long shot Gino is seen headed to the Ministry, but is readily put under arrest as he enters the heavily guarded place. As he is carried away and in the next straight cut put into jail he screams the following words, to no avail: "Avete sbagliato persona, sono italiano. Ditemi cosa ho fatto? Aprite che sono italiano..." The dark ambience of the jail frightens him, and he sheds tears as he cries out laud: "Ancora comunisti siete, comunisti! È questa la democrazia?" He too is soon encircled by undistinguishable figures, which evoke Fiore's earlier illustrative abasement in the infernal-like ambience of the mine. Though he parades his Italian identity as an element of immunity he is not made deserving of asserting such right. It is as if Amelio were saying that Italians must 'know their history,' for words in themselves have no weight, they must be backed up by solid evidence, the reputation of coming from a honorable breed and upholding an equally honorable creed. In order to build such reputation Gino must therefore first 'loose' his paraded identity.
We then cut to an equally dismal police officer's office where Gino is being questioned. In Amelio's film one of the most important dialogues and interaction, worth transcribing, is the one between Gino and the police officer. The scene has Gino and the police officer seated at each side of the officer's desk. The Albanian police officer tries to put Gino at ease offering some Turkish coffee. "Tu non bevi, non ti piace caffè turco? A me piace espresso. Mio padre ha studiato a Firenze, dice che la chiesa di Santa Maria Novella è bella..." "Dove sono i miei bagagli?" asks Gino, and then adds: "I vesiti li ho regalati..." releasing an embarrassed smile, suggesting that they were probably stolen or stripped from him. He asks what they want from him. The officer reads his personal information from Gino's passport: "Cotrali Luigi. Agrigento, 1963. [...] Lavori con l'Alba Calzature?" [...] "Sì," answers Gino, and later adds: "Io personalmente di cosa sono accusato?" "Sei accusato per corruzione di questo ufficiale... al tempo di comunismo per questo c'era fucilazione," replies the police officer. Gino's next words are a sort of corollary of the Western World's alleged postmodern mentality, of which Italy must be the chief allusion: "Corruzione, fucilazione... Ancora non siete pratici dei metodi occidentali; è per sveltire la burocrazia, per aiutare le pratiche ad andare avanti... c'è più efficienza. Noi siamo imprenditori, qui l'economia è in crisi; noi investiamo i nostri capitali... di tasca nostra." The Albanian police officer's reply provides a clear definition of both Fiore and Gino's characters' nature: "Economia albanese è morta, ma i morti non si lasciano ai cani per strada." Gino is silenced and apparently chastised by the officer's statement, as his attempt to hide his remorseful expression suggests. He makes a last attempt to assert his allegedly privileged foreign Italian status: "Fatemi chiamare l'ambasciata." The officer gestures him to do so, pointing to the phone on his desk, and adds: "All'ambasciata sono tutti albanesi, profughi che hanno occupato tutta l'ambasciata. Albanesi sono tutti pazzi, vogliono tutti andare in Italia con nave." After getting such a response Gino decides to drink his coffee, and then asks: "Cosa devo fare?" "Devi firmare questo: confessione. E io ti lascio libero fino al processo. A me interessa mandare in prigione ufficiale corrotto; tu parti da Albania il primo possibile," is the officer's explicit answer. "Grazie," replies Gino. When Gino attempts to grab his passport, the officer refuses to give it to him. To Gino's question, "come faccio senza passaporto?" the officer evocative answer is, "Ma in Albania, noi siamo tutti senza passaporto."
The mention of the Santa Maria Novella church is another rare verbal reference to a religious symbol and site in Lamerica. The officer seems to remind Gino of his heritage, and inheritance, within the dismal conditions of his office and Albanian country. Yet the officer's words and attitude are an indication of spiritual and moral richness on his part, whereas Gino's comments and attitudes, despite his very Italian origins, are evidence of his spiritual void, which now makes room for fear and cowardice instead. The scene contrasts the exterior place the characters find themselves in, on one hand, with the conditions of their inner self on the other. Once again in the viewer's eyes Amelio seems to make a statement on the nature and role of human politics and ethics. Here the characters' possession of a system of values or lack of it, does not entirely depend on the environment surrounding them, but rather becomes a personal choice, and an undeniable responsibility, regardless of how unfavourable, adverse or hostile they exterior conditions become. Moral values such as honesty, solidarity, and integrity, which are also in part transmitted by one's historical heritage, can hold in the direst circumstances an not necessarily be corroded, as the very attitude of integrity in the officer's character may well suggest. Gino's loss of his passport suggests a very loss of identity, which has been exposed to jeopardy and found utterly lacking in substance. The fact that an Albanian upright police officer must remind an indifferent Gino of Italy's past and value (by relating him the story of his Albanian father who was educated in Italy), amounts to shame on Gino's part, for it betrays his very claim. The officer has a different memory of Italy's identity, not visible in Gino's portrayal of the same. Thus Gino is either a very dubious 'product' of Italy's esteemed past and strong family values, or an indicator of its regression to moral demise. Speaking of the portrayal and projection to the viewer of Gino's character, as the psychology of an entire country (Italy of course), Bettin writes: "strutture psicologiche che non evolvono si affiancano a infantilismi cinici, a egoismi voraci e animaleschi, senza razionalità superiore, senza maturità" (19). On a similar tone Vitti writes: "Il comportamento e la falsa innocenza di Gino mettono a nudo lo stato di corruzione e la mancanza di conscienza morale che esiste nei rapporti pubblici e politici in Italia" (257). In the officer's straight words, Gino and Fiore's deeds are comparable to those of a "cane per strada," which is far from flattering for being an Italian in the impoverished neighbouring Albania. By confiscating his passport and informing him that in Albania "siamo tutti senza passporto," Gino transformation, from a fancy and cynic Italian into a bewildered refugee equal to his many Albanian neighbours, is narratively made complete. (Given the global nature of the refugee crisis, Gino's misadventure may also take on the significance of a prophetic drama, that is a dramatized illustration of a possible future predicament, where even the places and people to which one may turn for help have themselves unwisely lost their conventional identity, importance and purpose, as it is the case with the Italian Embassy in Albania.)
On that same evening, Gino is in a visibly dejected state, as he walks undetained in the city's streets, filled with Albanians in turmoil, suggesting that he signed the confession. The flares of a makeshift fire, around which many people, particularly children, are gathered, and the Italian words reaching him, attract him there. Gino gets close and stoops down to warm up. The camera pans and then closes up to a single girl, who translates a series of Albanian words into Italian, which are then repeated in unison by everyone. The straight-faced girl's eyes appear lifeless at first, despite the fire, but by the time she translates the last word a smile replaces her deadpan expression and her eyes light up. The sixteen words translated by her, in that order, are in Italian: strada, sogno, figlio, marito, pane, canzone, amore, freddo, ragazza, fiore, bene, mano, mela, scarpe, nave, mare. It is indicative to note that all the words translated have either to do with a fundamental human need, such as food, shelter, a sense of fulfilment and belonging, or with the means that may lead towards such coveted basic conditions, the 'promised-land.' They belong to both the early Italian immigrant experience and to the present Albanian aspirant immigrant. Antonio speaking of the symbolism carried by the title, Vitti writes: "Non c' dubbio che "Lamerica" un sogno, il desiderio di tutti gli insoddisfatti e poveri del mondo" (261).
In one of its rare cross dissolves, Lamerica leads the viewer from the Albanian girl's face, as she translates the last two evocative words "boat" and "sea", to a close-up of the prow of the sailing boat crammed with Albanians and Italians alike. The viewer is made to read the boat's painted name: Partizani. ("[È] la nave della Storia stessa, in movimento come sempre, tra bonacce e tempeste, tra progetti e imprevisti, tra caso, destino e volontà"-Bettin 19.) The introspective and mutually spell binding, stringed music score anticipated throughout the film (in every key scene portraying Michele's struggle to reclaim his life and values and rejoin his family) sets the tune and diegetic undertone of almost the entire last sequence of Amelio's film. Gino appears now severely tested and overwhelmed as he makes his way on the boat through the crowds of refugees, his visibly demystified and dejected expression testifying to his complete transition from a former privileged condition to one of utter misery and despair as a displaced person. He wears makeshift clothes and has an unusually long beard, his lifeless eyes further darkening his gloomy expression. Lo Verso's somewhat rugged features add successfully to the character's plight, and to the geographically Mediterranean look. He spots Michele seated in a narrow corner of the deck. Michele is generously handing morsels of bread to few Albanian children, reiterating the lesson on sharing one's life resources with the poorest. Gino, most probably ashamed to be recognized, hides his face by turning the other way. Michele recognizes him nevertheless, and friendly waves at him to come over. Gino's reaction is one of relief and moral dependency now, as he makes his way toward the fatherly figure of his elderly and wiser friend Michele. Michele has encouraging words for him, as he re-lives the experience of the Italian immigrant. His character is given the last words in Lamerica:
"Venite, sedetevi. Come sugnu cuntentu, vi sieti imbarcatu pure vui? Siamo stati sfortunati tutt'e ddue. Avete visto quanta gente? Iu non mi credeva che si imbarcavanu tutti. Ma lamerica è grande. Certi si sono portati la famiglia; ma Giovanni è troppo piccolo e Rosa è delicata. [...] Paisà ma vui sapiti parlare lamericanu? Io non sacciu macnu l'italianu. Che diciti, ch'u dannu u stessu u lavoru? [...] Sugnu stanco, ma voglio stari sveglio quando arrivo a Nova York."
Michele is given the last word in both the dialogue and indirect discourse made to the viewer by Amelio's film. We could say that Michele's words amount the immigrant's monologue from the past new world being taught to the aspirant immigrant of the present world. Gino has materially and conventionally become an immigrant, morally headed to a new world, and now he needs to be taught the immigrant's monologue to make his renewal complete. It is as if Amelio were saying that there couldn't be any social progress by forgetting one's past. Having no historical memory and values, equals to build one's future prospect on empty grounds. Once again in Michele's words, among one's priceless values, paramount importance is given to the family. On the boat to "Lamerica" Gino is wordless, a form of madness similar to that of Spiro, and indicating that a new dimension in his life has begun. Gino's atonement and rebirth is possible only on the waters, the Adriatic Sea in this case. At a certain point the frame is split in two, as at the beginning of Amelio's film thus closing the circle. This time though it carries a different meaning. Half of the frame has Gino with his empty stare over the crowded boat and the other half shows a glimpse of the naturally curling waters as they sail ahead. The overcrowded rusty boat reminds him of the foolishness of his crooked course while the friendly waters are there to inform him of the possibility of complete rebirth. The sea carried a similar function in another recent film by Gianni Amelio, Ladro di bambini (1992), where Enrico Lo Verso starred as the carabiniere Antonio. In Lamerica the sea seems to have the same reconciliatory function it had in Ladro di bambini: "Il mare gli apre le porte: il mare accoglie tutti e tre, li laverà e li pulirà […] perché non è oscuro il mare, è luminoso, solare, caldo, amico, non li inganna. È la natura non ancora corrotta, è la natura che può ancora restitutire la luce" (Pivetta 22). In the following scene Amelio cuts to a series of close-ups of different faces, people of both genders and of various ages. Each face differs from the next, so do their more or less bewildered or overly attentive expressions, and yet on the other had they are all equal, as if they were all different facets of one same story and the chapters of one and only history. Amelio leaves to the viewer the reading of each possible story and chapter of the bigger story and history portrayed on the people's faces. A side shot shows the boat cruising the waters while the tired out Michele takes some rest, his head leaning over Gino's shoulder in familial-like understanding. Then Amelio returns to the close-ups of various refugees and displaced people's faces. The last close-up shows the handsome face of a young man who seems to smile hopeful to the future as the stringed music continues and the picture dissolves into the scrolling credits. Speaking of the Albanian's bitter smiles, and probably of this last one in particular, Bondanella concludes: "Like the best work of his neorealist predecessors, Amelio's America thus offers his audience at least some hope of future improvement" (454). Here the music key motif and choice of instrumentation (only strings) increasingly add to the introspective moment aiding the viewer's assimilation of the story's morals without drawing his attention to itself, as Klawans maintains: "[L]a colonna sonora di Franco Piersanti [...] s'insinua nelle scene come un ricordo o un battito del cuore, emergendo in pieno solo nel finale del film" ("Lamerica," The Nation 1996).

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