Ciao, Professore!, 1993



Review

Lina Wertm�ller has stated many times that her films have used humor to reach a mass audience. Although, or perhaps because, most of her films have been highly controversial blends of race and gender politics and farcical sex, Wertm�ller has been fairly successful in reaching audiences both in Italy and overseas. She made several mediocre films in the late 1970's and 80's, but with Ciao, Professore! in 1993, Wertm�ller was again able to speak to the general moviegoing public.

Ciao, Professore! is an artistic, but not artsy, film about a rotund northern Italian elementary school teacher named Marco Sperelli who is sent to teach in a small Neapolitan town, called Corzano, because of a clerical error. There, he faces the formidable challenge of educating the local fourth-grade ruffians.We have seen this plot many times before: the professore must whip the students into academic shape, in the process learning as much from them as they do from him. The major difference between this film and so many others of the �blackboard jungle� genre comes from the students. Instead of making a film about tough inner city high school kids, Wertm�ller chose to feature a bunch of adorable fourth-graders who behave like adults.

Ciao, Professore! seems to be free of the heavy political and social commentary that typifies most of Wertm�ller�s earlier films, but it does criticize the conditions under which the children live. One of the boys has an abusive drunken father. Another must help his father collect garbage all night. One household is run by a 14-year old. All of the children are poor, and almost all of them break the child labor laws by working when they should be in school. However, the school, which is essentially run by an opportunistic janitor, is shown to be corrupt and not necessarily a better option than life on the streets.

By the end of the film Sperelli and his students have reached a happy medium. They are starting to learn to do their schoolwork, and he learns such valuable skills as grand theft auto. The film is quite episodic, and it takes a long time for teacher and students to develop a positive relationship.

Ciao Professore! is sincere and charming without being melodramatic, and this property can be attributed to the cynical dark humor that Wertm�ller employs. The endless streams of expletives spouted by the young students recalls dialogue from her earlier films, but it is novel and hilarious, if a bit disturbing, to hear such filthy language coming from gap-toothed young mouths.

Ciao, Professore! lacks the controversial sex and gender politics of such films as Swept Away (1975) and Sotto Sotto (1984), but Wertm�ller again addresses the omnipresent rift that exists between northerners and southerners in Italy. This time, however, she does it with an uncharacteristically affectionate eye for her subject. Perhaps she is getting sentimental in her old age.



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