A just-graduated engineer is rejected by a huge multinational organization because he failed a banal aptitude test.
Now he’s back home yet unemployed and he doesn’t know what to do for a living.
He lives in a suburban court-yard shared with other tenants of different ages and activities. They all have in common a
feeling of being outcasts and a desperate drive to make it in the bustling city just around the corner.
For an unemployed engineer, working as a dishwasher in a snack bar is a good job as
long as he earns a bit of cash. Running through the whole city to deliver a glass of water is something more than a simple errand:
a trip, an odyssey tackled with the determination of one who must succeed at any cost. But for one who must follow such a long and
tedious road it’s an hurdle-race. Sometimes the engineer seems to have reached his goal, but soon enough he finds himself back in
the middle of the road or, should we say, back unemployed in the same court-yard.
If work doesn’t abound, why not dedicate one’s free time to creativity, to expanding one’s culture and travelling with a theatre
company in the effort to conquer an audience? A true cultural mission makes the actors really proud of themselves even if their
"Magic Show" isn’t met by the same enthusiasm by the unfortunate peasants, the passive audience of the cultural event.
His experience with culture is nothing but a huge flop and now only a berated "self" remains. So why not concentrate one’s efforts
on a love story, trying to conquer the girl next door? But there’s a big problem: shyness...The engineer appeals to all his technical
know-how and builds a robot in his image and likeness, but more handsome, a little taller and fashionably dressed. It’s this false
image of himself that has to be responsible for the seduction of the girl; it’s this electronic mannequin which will venture into
the dim lights of a Disco. But another flop is pending.. A short circuit with a series of bangs and crashes and all the illusions
disappear. But finally, there is someone who speaks to him: a young female neighbor starts talking with the guy, who’s still
bewildered by the latest event. It’s the beginning of a new relationship. We can’t call it love or friendship and definitely not
business. It’s a relationship between two persons who gave up asking each other questions . Nobody knows if it’ll last forever,
but probably it’ll go on for a very long time...
A silent film (no dialogue) produced in 1979 on a budget of 100 million Italian Lire (US $ 67,000) which grossed over 6
billion Italian Lire (US $ 4 Million), worldwide. Its peculiarity is that it is the only film in the world - I believe -
that contains twenty minute’s footage shot with the same actors, in the same location and based on the same script,
previously shot in a different season. Indeed the previous summer, Nichetti had filmed the short "Magic Show", based on the
same storyboard. "Ratataplan" instead was shot in winter, and contains the same story in the central part of the film.
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