In 1976, Scorsese made Taxi Driver, a feverish film about alienation, urban solitude, and the slow inner combustion of an ordinary man; while in 1977, Monicelli released Un borghese piccolo piccolo, a work that starts from the tradition of Italian-style comedy only to overturn it from within, becoming one of the darkest and most unsettling portraits of Italy’s petite bourgeoisie. Two films that seem worlds apart in style, language, and setting, yet surprisingly close at their core: both portray the transformation of ordinary, invisible men crushed by a society that no longer seems to have room for them.
Un borghese piccolo piccolo marks a clear shift in Monicelli’s career. Directed with a steady, precise hand and featuring Alberto Sordi in one of the most intense and painful roles of his life, the film quickly abandons any trace of lightness to venture into tragic, bitter territory with no comforting escape. It exposes social hypocrisy, the collapse of institutions, and the darker side of everyday mediocrity—the gray zone where the most unsettling impulses often take root.
Sordi embodies Giovanni Vivaldi, a modest clerk who dreams of a slightly better future for his son. But when the boy is killed during a robbery, the man’s entire world collapses. Alone and betrayed by the system he had always trusted, Vivaldi chooses the path of revenge: he kidnaps the killer and slides into a spiral of violence that slowly erases every trace of his humanity.
The film’s strength lies precisely here: in the clarity with which Monicelli observes an ordinary man falling apart, step by step, without ever judging or absolving him. There’s the unsettling sense that reality itself can sometimes push even the mildest souls toward unthinkable depths. And perhaps that is why the film still wounds and provokes reflection today.