Bread and Chocolate (1974)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Then it was Italians for the Swiss. Recent it was Romanians for the Italians. And now the Chinese for the Romanians. This movie talks about the courage and the naivety of becoming a foreigner in the endless search for "the better". In the end...it remains a search and that is because we are not moving from a country to another inside ourselves. We are keeping the same place there: the place called "us- who we really are". The search remains without meaning, without result if we can't understand the importance of looking at us and understand the cultural and spiritual significance of our core. The story: An Italian becomes an immigrant in Sweetland, in search for what his country can't give to him and his family; financial stability. Here he has to face new and continuous challenges, even greater than the ones he had to face in his country and son... the hero finds himself fighting with destiny itself who seem to have made a job out of the continuous effort of putting Nino down and tryings to show him who he is and that he must not forget what the reason is for his presence in the semi-adoptive country. A drama full of comic and hilarious situations where the director really knows what is the difference between comic and drama and how to put them next to each other without failing to send the message. But more important, the comic is on the highest standard of intelligence; simple and efficient as you expect from a movie that has cinematic power inside as well as an important theme to explore and expose: immigration. The acting is incredible and all the actors manage to deliver it to the highest expectations. Nino Manfredi is exceptional and extremely well distributed in this role created with the sensibility for abstract. A movie to remain in history before and after all the countries will merge into one.

Although a bit too long,"Pane e Cioccolate" features moments of unquestionable brilliance,of sheer genius ,which make him a classic of the Italian cinema any day.The scenes in the chicken cop are terrific and include idea to rival the best of the Italian cinema of the seventies ,which is saying something.It's so terrific I have to search my memory to find such terrifying scenes as those of the poor wops turning into poultry.And as if it weren't enough,those purple passages are followed by the irruption of posh young people,rich kids,who look like E.T.s .It's Italian directors' forte to walk a fine line between comedy and drama (the drag act),a thing French movies simply can't achieve ,with a few exceptions.Much more accessible than his stodgy "disordine" ,"pane" is Brusati's (and Manfredi's ) triumph :it's updated Chaplin -the scene when the hero chews his sandwich when elegant ladies are serving cakes and enjoying classical music - An immigrant will always be "tried out" .Everywhere he shows,he will be the perfect loser .Like this? try these.....They're a weird mob (Powell,1966) America America (Kazan ,1963) The immigrant (Chaplin,1918)

(Some spoilers) This was a very popular film when it was first shown in America in 1978, about five years after its Italian release, and was probably one of the best-known and liked Italian film among the general public in America, along with LA DOLCE VITA, CINEMA PARADISO, and LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. It was directed by Franco Brusati, and this may be his best achievement. This immensely famous bittersweet comedy stars Nino Manfredi as a Chaplinesque immigrant waiter, Nino, trying desperately to assimilate among the cool and methodical Swiss. His presence in the country is as a temporary worker and much of his time is spent trying to stay afloat and to avoid deportation. Right from the start the film captures the pain and confusion of the outsider with incisive precision, as when he is denounced for public urination.There are many great scenes. One is when Nino finds employment in a chicken farm and lives among a family of eccentrics who find the impersonation of chickens to be the highest of mankind's callings. Another scene, in which Nino watches a group of Swiss youth bathing in a lake and looking like gods in some kind of sensual Valhalla, encapsulates his feelings of inferiority and alienation. An Italian worker "drag show", funny and sad, is performed by these men that have left behind friends and family in "sunny Italy", to return only at Easter and Christmas. Another great moment occurs when Nino modifies his appearance to attempt to look more north-European, and cannot help but revert to his Italian persona when the locals cheer on the Swiss soccer team and he vociferously applauds an Italian goal.Nino Manfredi rarely had a better role than this one, and Anna Karina, with whom he is tentatively in love, is fine as Elena, the Greek teacher-in-exile with a musical-prodigy of a young son. Johnny Dorelli is memorable as the wealthy Italian industrialist who befriends Nino, but who overdoses when confronted with financial ruin, taking with him some of Nino's own money. Bad luck dogs our hero, but he seems to emerge from the tunnel of despair with renewed hope…and literally so at the film's end.The term "Bread and Chocolate" in Italian refers to a snack of Nutella spread on bread and is the equivalent of "peaches and cream" or "fine and dandy," which is used with irony here in this great "commedia all'italiana."

This film about the struggles of an Italian immigrant in Switzerland generates bizarrely conflicting emotions; indeed at times you don't know whether to laugh or cry! I saw this years ago when I was at university and I expect it has dated in the sense that the status of immigrants has changed a lot since then. It may even be disquieting at times for those who have grown-up believing that they must never laugh at particular social groups, but the film is clearly sympathetic to those whose dignity is compromised daily by their circumstances of life. I defy anyone not to cry with laughter at the restaurant and chicken-coop scenes.