Humor, particularly as social commentary, tends to be particular to time and place. My wife and I saw Bread and Chocolate over the weekend, a 1973 Italian film directed by Franco Brusati that was a good example of this. It was about an earnest Italian man trying to make good as a guest worker in the German parts of Switzerland and the casual prejudice he encounters as he descends into lower and lower degradations. The title refers to the opening scene. The hero is sitting under a tree listening to a violin quartet in a public park. There is noise and activity all around, but when the hero takes a bite of a sandwich made from crusty bread and a chocolate bar, the quartet stops and glares at him. It is a comedy, but the humor must have had much more force then and for Italians. What does survive is the pathos of a man trying to hold to his identity in a world where that is a liability.
- J
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