Unit 2 - L'America

L’America begins with a black and white newsreel showing Mussolini’s triumphant takeover of Albania. As Mussolini’s troops enter, there is much celebration from the Albania people. Then the film fast forwards fifty years to a far different scene. We see a land full of destruction and citizens clamoring to get out any way they can find.

We are introduced to Gino, a young Italian con artist who, with his partner, enters Albania under the guise of opening a shoe factory. In order to receive a government grant for funding their bogus enterprise, the men must enlist the aid of an Albanian “straw man” chairman for the company, whose only requirement is that he be able to sign his name. Gino chooses Spiro, a seemingly muddle-minded old man with no family as the “perfect” chairman.

Gino takes Spiro to live at an orphanage where he believes Spiro can be manipulated as they see fit. However, Spiro has his own ideas about his life, and when Gino goes to see Spiro about appearing once again before the government officials, Spiro has left the facility. In order to save bogus shoe factory, Spiro must appear before the government official, so Gino begins to look for him.

When Gino catches up with Spiro, we find that the old man is not what he first appeared – in fact, he is not even Albanian, but an Italian deserter who has been imprisoned for fifty (50) years. In Spiro’s troubled mind, he has no recollection of the years of imprisonment, but is obsessed with returning to Italy to see his wife and the infant son he left behind when going off to war.

Throughout the film, we see an Albania scarred by war and destruction. The Albanian people are pictured in abject poverty. However, pervading their spirits is the hope for a better life if they can only get to Italy.

Gino as a character goes from being an arrogant trickster to just another Albanian trying to get out of Albania as he slowly loses all of his possessions, including his passport. As Gino’s possessions are lost, his relationship with Spiro evolves from one where Gino is taking advantage of the old man to a relationship somewhat like a father and son.

The final scene leaves us with a picture of a crowded ship taking hopeful immigrants to a new life in Italy, only the confused Spiro believes they are going to “L’America”, the land where anything is possible.

This is a beautiful film that shows us that hope does, in fact, spring eternal, even in the face of horrendous adversity.