Industrial State

By J.C.

LULU THE TOOL

Directed by ELIO PETRI Screenplay by UGO PIRRO and ELIO PETRI

This is a sharp, jangled, slightly bemused assault on the indignities that capitalism inflicts on the worker, as well as a few other indignities that the worker turns against the bosses. The movie is angry but wry about it, indignant without being incendiary. It is less like a Molotov cocktail, say, than a water balloon.

The original title of Lulu the Tool was The Working Class Goes to Paradise, a grand-prizewinner at Cannes in 1972. There is no good reason why it has taken so long to come Stateside--the diminishing market for foreign films probably has something to do with it--and even less cause for the U.S. distributor's cutting 28 minutes from the original. Petri obviously intended the film to have a slightly frenetic quality and edited it accordingly, as if to duplicate the nerve-shredding tension of a day in the factory. The additional cutting makes the rhythm of the film even more ragged than it should be.

Lulu has a blustery intensity that finds its source largely in the superb performance of Gian Maria Volonte. He plays the conscientious and eventually disconcerted Lulu with just the right mixture of dumb charm and derangement. It is Petri's thesis that the industrial state can be located somewhere between depersonalization and psychosis, and Volonte is eminently capable of covering the range in between. His Lulu is a creature of blind dedication with the best production record in the factory. No matter that he comes home too bushed to enjoy the amorous invitations of his mistress (the wonderful Mariangela Melato); no matter that his energy and commitment make his fellow workers look bad: Lulu slaves away like a man possessed.

What possesses him is an empty, aimless ambition that forces him to do his piecework as if by rote. His one source of solace is an occasional visit to a friend, Militina, now grown old and a little crazy, who spends his time in the madhouse giving political speeches and reading a child's biography of Spartacus.

Soon Lulu becomes as buggy as his friend. He turns rabidly political, delivers fiery speeches about the necessities of industrial reform, resistance and strike. For his pains, his mistress leaves him and the police beat him up. In politics as in work, Lulu's greatest quality-- his enthusiasm--is eventually turned against him.

Elio Petri is a film maker of deft, sar donic talents (We Still Kill the Old Way, Investigations of a Citizen Above Suspi cion, both starring Volonte). Lulu suggests no solutions. Petri takes great joy in the freedom of unrestricted attack and ignores the drudgery of coming up with answers. In fact, he could be counted on to mock anyone who dared to. sbJ.C.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.