The Swindlers (aka The Weavers)

Rosi’s impressive second feature, shot in Hanover and Hamburg, has a motley group of Italians migrants eking out a living as scam artists in Germany. Their swindle involves peddling poor quality textiles at highly inflated prices. The film shares with The Challenge, Rosi’s debut, a “careful sense of place and social context” (David Thomson), and confirmed the director as an up-and-comer. “Alberto Sordi, one of the great actors of the Italian cinema, gives a high-octane performance in this neorealist precursor to Franco Brusati’s 1973 comedy Bread and Chocolate. The film centers on Mario Balducci, a young itinerant vendor who is heading home to Tuscany from Hamburg after his failure to make a living off the German Economic Miracle. As he is about to board the train, he is taken under the wing of ‘Totò’ (Sordi), who introduces him to the organization of I magliari, a clan of salesman controlled by Don Raffaele. When the young man shows some independence by making a business alliance with a German merchant, the clan sets out to destroy him. With remarkable insight and empathy, Rosi examines the reasons why an outcast would seek the protection of the Mafia, and, finally, would join it” (Cinematheque Ontario). Colour, 35mm, in Italian with English subtitles. 107 mins.