Mobbing
(Mi piace lavorare)
With Nicoletta Braschi, Camille Dugay Comencini, Stefano Colace.
Italy, 2004, 35mm, color, 89 min.
Italian with English subtitles.
Loosely based on a true story, Mobbing paints a disturbing portrait of Italy's white-collar business world through the story of Anna, a sales associate in a manufacturing firm who is "mobbed," or harassed, after her company is sold in a corporate merger. Her new superiors, forbidden from laying Anna off, decide instead to terrorize her into quitting. For this comment on late capitalism, Comencini returns to the Italian tradition of cinematic realism – shooting on location with a handheld digital camera, available light and improvised dialogue. Best known in the U.S. for her role in Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful, Nicoletta Braschi delivers a remarkable performance stoically battling harrowing levels of manipulation. With her unobtrusive style that evokes at different times an objective fly on the wall and an empathetic observer, Comencini captures the revelatory within moments startlingly human and those shockingly inhuman.