The Brianza noir and Bersani’s folly: why staying isn’t a matter of left or right

I recently had the opportunity to watch Brianza, Simone Catania’s film presented at the Rome Film Festival. It deserves a theatrical release and to be discussed beyond this brief mention. “Between Milan and Switzerland there is a place called Brianza. A place built on work, on money, and on the fear of losing both,” are the words that open the story and close it like a coffin. Almost a noir film, it bears more resemblance to the Coen brothers’ Fargo than to the sociological drivel that Virzì set in Brianza. Apart from the fact that it is set between Como and Lugano – which aren’t actually in Brianza – but then, as we know, Brianza is a cesspit of the Italian imagination, a hell of factories and greed that one should steer well clear of.

Yet here, the ‘Report’-style gossip gives way to condensed images from an encyclopaedia that is both realistic and hagiographic. The ‘danée’, the guns and the Western-style riding schools (a quick check reveals there are far fewer of both compared to other regions), the Calabrian-American pizzeria, the towering hedges concealing enormous villas. The nativity scene. The bank balance as the sole source of respectability. A whole series of literary – or rather, cinematic – fractals, in which the viewer within the narrative immediately understands what is being discussed and who is being spoken ill of. Of a predatory economy nearing its end, of devastated anthropologies. Work, money, the fear of losing both.

Yesterday I read a feature in La Repubblica from Campobello di Licata focusing on the experience of the “ragazzi della restanza”. The serendipity of the rhyme. It tells the story of a movement that began a year ago in Sicily and involves around a hundred youth organisations that have chosen to combat the phenomenon of emigration – now predominantly among young people – of the new generations with educational qualifications, towards areas or countries offering better economic prospects. Indeed, according to Repubblica, their aim is to “turn the very concept of emigration on its head”. And the neologism “restanza” encapsulates “the right not to be forced to leave in search of a better future, to hope for a different life even where, for the time being, economic indicators are among the lowest in Italy”. That takes real courage – and I wish them the best of luck.

Campobello di Licata is a beautiful little village, certainly more charming than Lentate sul Seveso; but Imbersago and the Curone Valley would give it a run for its money. It remains uncertain whether the courage demonstrated by those who choose to stay behind is socially or ethically superior to that of a peer in Brianza who takes over his father’s workshop—the family business—and persists despite the crisis and a world that is no longer what it used to be. Work, and money as the result of that work. And little or no fear of the future.

Then there are the details, which always shed a little more light on things, just like in films. In the square in Campobello di Licata, amongst the lads from the ‘restanza’, was Pier Luigi Bersani. With the usual charming air of someone looking for a pun for a talk show, we imagine, he came up with a phrase that sounds rather silly: ‘Staying on the left’. Better still: “Being able to stay is a sacrosanct left-wing principle”. So is emigration a right-wing thing? Were the workers who headed north to the factories – to Mirafiori to build cars but also to form the backbone of the labour movement – right-wing? Are the 56,000 young graduates who left Sicily to seek employment in Milan or elsewhere in Europe right-wing? Let us assume it was merely a poorly executed pun. After all, Bersani has broadened the scope of the concept: “If you don’t act for collective growth, for shared rights, the wheel cannot turn.”

This is true, but it can also be a right-wing phenomenon: as in the case of the Texas tech tycoons and the micro-enterprises that fill Lombardy’s innovation hubs. However, there is another detail that does not quite add up, or at least raises a legitimate question. The promoters of the ‘Pact to Stay’ rightly speak of necessary conditions and rights: “From the dignity of work to healthcare for all to tax fairness”. They complain that in their region “there is no cinema, no theatre, no public transport, nor decent wages”. But in Campobello, says Carmelo, a 33-year-old engineer who returned after completing his studies, “there is the chance to have space, to build social connections and opportunities… At this moment in history, it is far more interesting to live in Sicily than in other parts of Europe’. There is no doubt about that. But, exactly, to do what? Take over an industrial unit, launch a start-up, attract some equity funds to invest here? Transform agriculture? For now, the movement has put forward a proposal for a regional law, ‘Sicilia zero disoccupazione’, which draws inspiration from social legislation such as the French ‘Territoires Zéro Chômeur de Longue Durée’ (trialled since 2016 in many economically depressed areas), or the call for permanent jobs in areas suffering from severe depopulation and a lack of services. These ideas are supported by Svimez.

At present, however, this represents little more than public support for a position that does not yet exist and for an initiative that does not generate employment, business, or private enterprise (let alone any fear of losing it). It may well be that the rural population is more left-wing and socially better off than in Brianza. But economic sustainability – the kind that brings in revenue – is not for that black hole straight out of a monster film.