Drama
Italian (La classe operaia va in paradiso)
1972 · Directed by Elio Petri · 113 min
Lulù Massa is a champion piece-rate worker in a Milan factory, proud of his speed and his pay. When the machinery begins to change how he sees his job, his comrades and himself, the film follows him into a loud, angry, darkly comic argument about labour in postwar Italy.
Why it matters in cinema history
A central film of 1970s Italian political cinema, and the middle piece of Petri's loose trilogy on neurosis and power. It brings the energy of the 1968-69 labour unrest into a fiction film.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a portrait of how work reshapes a body and a mind, with the politics seen through one man's nerves.
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