Bread and Chocolate

1974 "You'll Laugh Till Your Heart Breaks"
7.4| 1h50m| en
Details

An Italian immigrant tries to make a new life in Switzerland, taking on a series of increasingly menial jobs in order to do it. He attempts to fit into his new home and society but fails at every turn. Unable to go home again, will his tenacity and optimism be enough to live on?

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Reviews

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?
Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
ilustra-neuropixel Then it was Italians for the Swiss. Recent it was Romanians for the Italians. And now the Chinese for the Romanians. This movie talks about the courage and the naivety of becoming a foreigner in the endless search for "the better". In the end...it remains a search and that is because we are not moving from a country to another inside ourselves. We are keeping the same place there: the place called "us- who we really are". The search remains without meaning, without result if we can't understand the importance of looking at us and understand the cultural and spiritual significance of our core. The story: An Italian becomes an immigrant in Sweetland, in search for what his country can't give to him and his family; financial stability. Here he has to face new and continuous challenges, even greater than the ones he had to face in his country and son... the hero finds himself fighting with destiny itself who seem to have made a job out of the continuous effort of putting Nino down and tryings to show him who he is and that he must not forget what the reason is for his presence in the semi-adoptive country. A drama full of comic and hilarious situations where the director really knows what is the difference between comic and drama and how to put them next to each other without failing to send the message. But more important, the comic is on the highest standard of intelligence; simple and efficient as you expect from a movie that has cinematic power inside as well as an important theme to explore and expose: immigration. The acting is incredible and all the actors manage to deliver it to the highest expectations. Nino Manfredi is exceptional and extremely well distributed in this role created with the sensibility for abstract. A movie to remain in history before and after all the countries will merge into one.
vun88 Great tale about the "joys" of being an immigrant in 70's Switzerland and being rejected from their society for anything other than for labor.It's all in the title, no connection to the popular "pane e Stella" Italian snack here, rather the bread is a metaphor for the immigrants who have little choice but working abroad to put bread on their families table, while the chocolate refers to the luxury Swiss product and symbolizes that country's wealth. It's bread and chocolate as in rich and poor, as in eating for survival as opposed to eating for pleasure, as in immigrant and swiss, etc.
michelerealini For the Italian cinema this is an important film. Not only because there's a big actor -Nino Manfredi- but because it's based on real situations of the time it was made...In the Sixties and Seventies Italian and Spanish workers were the biggest immigrant groups in Switzerland. "Pane e cioccolata" talks about the experiences and difficulties of an Italian waiter in this country. Of course, some situations are caricatural, nevertheless the movie still keeps its strength because everything it's credible.Manfredi's character wants to remain in Switzerland because he believes he can make enough money to help his family, he dreams of carrying there wife and children and giving them a better life. We laugh a lot, at the same time there's much sadness because we see someone who tries everything to integrate in another society, without success.A bittersweet comedy, Italians are among the best moviemakers for mixing different feelings and talking about life.
James Weslowski (Turk-3) This is a warm, wonderful film. It is touching and funny and one of the very best "humanistic" films from Italy after Fellini lost his touch. It's hard to understand why this film is so little know to younger movie buffs. If you can find it, take a look!