SI PUO FARE (WE CAN DO IT/IT CAN BE DONE)

(Italy, 2008, d. Giulio Manfredonia)

Here is a comedy on risky, very risky, ground. The central characters are a group of mentally ill men and women who are part of a program, a co-operative, which tries to manage the lives of people who have been released from an institution but are still considered unable to live a 'normal' life. They are a strange bunch, as might be anticipated, and they provide a number of laughs. Which can raise alarm bells. Will we be asked to laugh with them or at them? Whatever the initial temptation to laugh at them, it is very soon superseded by our laughing with them.

While the setting is Milan, 1983-1985, the screenplay is based on a number of stories from this period and the 1990s. In fact, it is quite surprising to find at the end that there are many of these 'co-operatives' in operation in Italy today, offering opportunities for work and more personalised living (with a decrease in prescribing tranquilising medication).

We are introduced to Nello, a Leftist with a girlfriend, Sara, who works in the design and fashion business. He is got rid of from the Union and asked to go to one of the mentally handicapped organisations and manage their life and work (mainly stuffing envelopes and putting stamps on them). He applies union techniques, rules and egalitarian philosophy as well as making the members the partners in work. The supervising doctor is not impressed. His assistant is.

Nello is an idealist and, to the frequent chagrin of Sara, is obsessed with saving the world and his co-op members and forgetting her and ordinary people. However, the result of the meetings and discussions where every idea (or not having any idea) is welcomed, is that the group has a flair for laying parquetry.

The actors performing as the mentally impaired do a very convincing job, remaining steadfastly in character, through their limitations, their collaboration and work, their idiosyncracies. While there are a number of problems – some of which become serious towards the end – and the audience may feel that erring on the side of caution in having these men and women out in the workplace is better, the principle of affirmation, less reliance on drugs and more on enabling them to grow in being their better selves, in going with the manias as far as possible while finding humane ways of supervising and controlling, is the best and most effective policy.

Sad, often very funny, this is a very humane film, always challenging the audience to ask themselves how they would act and make decisions concerning these men and women, their self-image, their illnesses, their being forced to the margins, their relationships, sexuality, and management of their salaries and lives. Above all, the film suggests hope and encouragement rather than marginalisation and despair.