Title: Foccacia Blues
Director: Nico Cirasola
Running Time: 90 minutes
Major Actors: Renzo Arbore, Lino Banfi, Dante Marmone,
Nico Cirasola, Michele Placido
McDonalds McDoesn’t Do It For Altamurans
Who doesn’t enjoy a good rendition of an underdog victory? In Foccacia Blues, Nico Cirasola provides audiences with just such a story centered on a fledgling bakery forced to compete against a newly opened McDonalds only a few doors away in his hometown of Altamura.
In what Cirasola describes as “[his] docu-comedy,” he provides interview accounts from villagers living in Altamura and combines them with an interwoven subplot that provides an alternative look on the contrasting values of a small Italian town and a giant consumerism culture.
While at times a bit indulgent, the spirit present from the first moment we are introduced to the characters of Foccacia Blues makes it difficult to walk away from this charming tale of a small town bakery’s victory over the oppressive franchise of McDonalds.
After an awkward and unnecessary promotional intro for the film that tells us how much we should want to see the film we are already filling the theater seats to see, Cirasola brings us to a map of Italy where we see a toy car, bright blue, chugging along through the countryside roads. The map then becomes the vibrant countryside itself, taking us into the heart of Altamura, where the story truly begins, and allowing us an exquisite look at what makes Altamura worth defying big corporations in the first place.
We know what we are fighting for as soon as the dynamo cooking duo, Lino Banfi and Dante Marmone, start the wordplay about each other’s prospective hometowns while preparing the ingredients to make, you guessed it, foccacia bread on their television show. Each of the interviewees brims with personality. From the mother-daughter pair who runs the bakery downtown to the group of elderly men just looking for a cool place to sit during the hot summer afternoons, each person imbues the film with their own distinct identity and heritage. We begin to understand exactly why a McDonalds would not survive in such a close-knit town.
The story that unfolds is not as much of a tirade against the oppressive force of consumerist business practice, but a humorous and calm defense for the existence of Altamura’s village culture, as well as an explanation of how they managed to crowd out the most widespread fast-food chain in the world simply by continuing to live and interact the way they had done for centuries before it showed up on their doorstep.
One butcher gives a humorous account of passing by the McDonalds and seeing a new sign out advertising their “100% ground beef.” He recounts his surprise of how ignorant the business owners must have been to place that sign in the window, because, he states, “Everyone in town knows that’s the worst cut of meat.” By the end of the day it was gone.
Interludes with Renzo, the small-town fruit stand hero and driver of the bright blue truck at the beginning of the film, provide a comedic parallel to the central message of Foccacia Blues. As he struggles against the flash and flair of Manuel, a city slicker passing through town who knows nothing about the intricacies and values of small town customs, to keep the attention of his long time love interest, we become more entangled in the web of Italian life and are given a behind-the-scenes taste of the vibrancy of the village.
The culmination of all that is true and masterful about Foccacia Blues occurs when Renzo, harried from a day of chance encounters with Manuel, comes home to find the tomatoes he carefully laid out to sundry have been blocked by a giant shadow in the shape of an “M,” which he looks up and discovers is the sign from the newly erected McDonalds. We feel Renzo’s pain and frustration in his waste of an entire day’s work and simultaneously understand the resulting interruption of the McDonalds in the lives of the all the people inhabiting Altamura.
The only thing missing from Foccacia Blues is an account from the franchise owners of the failed McDonalds. Presumably because this film was made as an afterthought following the failed business venture, Cirasola failed to include interviews from the perspective of people trying to acclimate their enterprise to a culture so vastly different from their own.
Foccacia Blues, though it occasionally verges on open patriotism that, while important and interesting to Italians, may become wearisome and redundant to those not a part of the small village itself, overall becomes a heartwarming documentary perspective on the success of a people who did nothing other than to continue deferring to a preference for their own culture. Cirasola manages such a perfect encapsulation of the spirit and heart of Altamura through his story that makes it difficult not to root for this tiny town’s film, Foccacia Blues, to come out on top.
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