Full Title: 1981
Director: Ricardo Trogi
Year: 2009
Comments: This film is truly delightful, a word I rarely use to describe a film. The movie is a semi-autobiographical account of Ricardo Trogi’s family life as Italian immigrants in Quebec in 1981. The plot takes place when Trogi is twelve years old and therefore the film itself is (brilliantly) seen through the eyes of a twelve year old. Though this flick deals with several serious issues such as immigration and the resulting prejudices that come with it, it is overall a light hearted, amusing work, and as I said earlier, delightful. Trogi uses 1981 as a character; the young Ricardo Trogi needs to keep up with the fast paced times and all the new gagets and hoodwinks (stylish jackets, trapper keepers, video games, etc) and what have you that every cool twelve year old must have or they ain’t shit. Since, Ricardo is the new kid with a funny accent, it makes all of these “necessities” all the more important and in fact, it would be the end of the world if he didn’t have them. The adult Trogi, the filmmaker, uses these humorous adolescent anecdotes to highlight the more serious, social perils, anxieties, if you will, of being working class and not being able to afford everything everyone else (seemingly) around you has. Ultimately, being happy. Over the course of the film the boy grows up…. a little and he learns that at the end of the day, sometimes the world is just a phony place.

Grade: 7/10