Ratataplan

Ratataplan is a 1979 Italian comedy film directed, written and starring Maurizio Nichetti. The film, despite its low budget, obtained a great commercial success and launched the career of Nichetti. The film earned Nichetti a Silver Ribbon for Best New Director. Plot Life does not offer much satisfaction to the recent graduate engineer Colombo: in a job interview in which candidates are asked to draw a tree, he is the only one not hired by the company since his drawing, instead of being monochromatic and schematic as the executives would like, is colorful and lush. Colombo lives in a battered but lively palace with a railing; he has four neighbors: a woman who is perpetually pregnant, the members of the theater cooperative "Quelli di Grock", a girl always intent on carrying heaps of rags, and a ramshackle dance school attended by a student he is in love with, but she won't even look at him. He is, in his own way, a genius of electronics and automation (he has built a contraption that prepares his breakfast and brings it to him in bed, and which hands him his clothes for the day), however his job is that of a waiter at a remote drinks kiosk at the top of Montagnetta di San Siro. The owner is a fat and alcoholic hag who is the only customer of herself and spends her days being served beers by Colombo. The routine is interrupted when the wheelchair bound manager of an international summit has a heart attack: one of those present at the summit calls a nearby bar to bring a glass of water, but by mistake dials the number of the kiosk.