(page 14 of Vol. 30-5)

December, 1978

Soundings Volume 1, Number 2

Reel Review

Bread and Chocolate

By Sister Marie Cicchese

Man does not live by bread alone, and even those who can afford the luxury of chocolate are not sustained for long by its sweetness. With sensitivity and compassion, Franco Brusati explores the deepest hungers of the human heart in his award-winning film Bread and Chocolate. This Italian film with English sub-titles, like all good comedy, presents the comic and often poignant struggle of humanity striving for satisfaction, and, at the same time, is also a vehicle for serious reflection.

Actor Nino Manfredi in his Chaplinesque role of an Italian immigrant seeking employment in Switzerland gives a superb caricature of man’s attempts to endure the frustrations of daily existence. Manfredi’s portrayal of Nino Garafoli and his often futile struggle to provide a better way of life for himself and family is complete with gently irony and self-mockery and shows that if the “best laid plans of mice and men” often fail, that chocolate so enticing and attractively boxed can also leave our fingers sticky and our basic hungers unsatisfied.

We can identify with the yearnings of immigrant who suffers the loneliness of separation form family and homeland. Nino Garafoli, an alien in a foreign land, is Everyman on pilgrimage. It is on this journey that the eaters of bread and chocolate share a common bond, if not materially, at least in their mutual hungers.

Like Gino, we are nourished on route with gently strokes of kindness, support, and understanding from our fellow pilgrims. Amidst his frustrations, Nino continues to be graced because he continues to give of himself. A fatherless boy, a young restaurant co-worker, factory laborers – companions in misery – are all the beneficiaries of Nino’s compassion and concern.

The film provokes laughter, often spontaneous, always thoughtful. The restaurant scenes in which Nino serves his apprenticeship as a waiter, entail comedy at its best, with the possibility of tears just beneath the surface.

Director Brusati employs the beauty of Swiss scenery to full advantage as the camera focuses on life’s joys and sorrows. Adding to the aesthetic experience of the film is the background music of Handel, Mozart, and Bizet, together with artistically photographed scenes, possessing the drama and reality of a Brueghel painting.

Bread and Chocolate believes in life and in the resiliency of the human spirit, values not often present in current film. Its message not only affirms light at the end of life’s tunnel, but shows its presence at the beginning and along the way as well.