The Postman (Il Postino)—directed by Michael Radford. Drama. Color.
★★★★★
The Story: What could a world renown poet and his postman possibly have in common?
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Every other male on that island is a fisherman, but our hero is no good at that, so when a part-time postman job comes up for a man with a bike, he bites.
The poet Pablo Neruda has taken refuge from political terror in Chile in a remote house on a small Italian Island. To bring him his mail, our postman bikes up the mountain road every day to his door.
The town is fascinated by the presence of this great celebrity—as famous for his politics as his poetry. Our postman understand his village, but is not political, not worldly nor widely read. He presently comes to ask Neruda’s help.
What’s the wonder here?
The wonder is the confluence of two styles of screen acting. It is a mesh so seamless you would not suppose two styles even exist.
The first is the style of the great French film actor Phillippe Noiret. He tells us in the bonus material that he based his portrait on Neruda never crossing his legs. Which, in terms of the rubric of acting, means that his Neruda is never at once remove from any situation or person, that he is always open, never posed. Noiret’s acting style is what was said of Mildred Dunnock’s: so experienced it looks fresh.
The second style is that of the actor in search of a style. Massimo Troisi, which is to say a famous belovèd comic screen actor obliged to stop being funny and start relating to other characters according to their dramatic status. This works because, since he and everyone hold Neruda in awe, the story requires that his character’s job is to find a way to enter into Neruda—into his house, into his talent, into his values—in order to to let Neruda into his. It is the story of one man learning from another, the character with no experience dissolving into reaching out for the experience of the other.
Troisi’s performance of this character is so taking that one supposed Troisi had never acted in his life before. It is breathtakingly new. The Zen beginner beginning before one’s very eyes. There is nothing like it in all cinema. You might suppose he was an amateur, someone they dragged in off the street, and blessed him with the perfect role. How happy this character makes me!
This film was loved in its day and is lovable today. Don’t miss it. Draw all those you love into a screening. After a bit the subtitles will not disturb anyone. Open-heartedness has never been so simple, so easy, so available, so beautiful.