Nino and His Oh-So-Present Memories of Underdevelopment

In “Mafioso,” Alberto Lattuada’s incomparable, half-forgotten 1962 crime comedy-travelogue (and then some), the divisions between northern and southern Italy are drawn in vivid, almost cartoonish relief. The hero, played by the great Italian comic actor Alberto Sordi — an irrepressible mixture of clown, blowhard and matinee idol — scrambles to reconcile the contradictions between his life in Milan and his Sicilian roots, an identity crisis that is clearly not his alone.

The underdevelopment of the south and its effect on the life of the nation as a whole are not unusual subjects in postwar Italian cinema, but it is rare to see them addressed in such an exuberant spirit. Which is not to say that “Mafioso” is flippant or cynical. On the contrary, the movie is at once a giddy mixture of farce, satire and opera buffa and a closely observed drama of social dislocation and cultural confusion.

The opening scene finds Mr. Sordi’s character, Antonio Badalamenti, on the job at a gleaming, cavernous Fiat factory. The place runs like clockwork, and Antonio, with his crisp white lab coat and his clipboard and stopwatch, is a shiny, efficient cog in the great machine. He is the model modern European in an age of economic expansion: a perfect specimen of the up-and-coming urban middle class, with a lovely blond wife, Marta (Norma Bengell), two young daughters (also blond) and an apartment full of contemporary electrical appliances.

That he is Sicilian also makes him something of a showpiece, evidence that a fellow from humble, backward circumstances can flourish in the new Italy. The old one, though, is just a train- and ferry-ride away. Cashing in his saved-up vacation time, Antonio decides to take Marta and the girls for their first visit to his hometown, and their trip, which occupies most of the movie, is like a journey to another planet.

Or another era. While Milan bustles into the age of consumer capitalism, Calamo, Antonio’s dusty native village, clings to the customs and folkways of feudalism. These are played broadly, for comic effect, but also with an undertone of sympathy and ambivalence. The homecoming scene, in which Antonio drags Marta and their daughters into his parents’ house through a crush of relatives, is a brilliantly hectic set piece, a sensory immersion in the strange, suffocating warmth of traditional family life.

The women in black dresses and kerchiefs, the silver bed jammed into a dark downstairs room, the fried swordfish and black pasta at lunch, the living room furniture arranged on the half-built terrace: it’s all a bit overwhelming for Marta, and for Antonio too. He is, of course, outwardly delighted, showering everyone with kisses and presents and bursting into song at the sight of the mountains rising up behind the town.

But he is also a different person. In Milan he was Antonio Badalamenti, a department head at a large industrial concern. Back home he goes by the diminutive Nino, and he’s both a prodigal son and a “picciotto,” a word that can be translated literally as “little man.”

Idiomatically, however, picciotto means something like what devotees of American mobster movies have learned to call a “made” guy. Antonio’s good fortune, it turns out, was enabled by the good offices of a local boss named Don Vincenzo (Ugo Attanasio), who needs a little favor in return for his beneficence.

“Mama commands, and the baby obeys,” is how the Don puts it, and Antonio’s eager, unquestioning obedience sends his life, and “Mafioso,” on a startling detour.

I will not say more, since Rialto Pictures, which is responsible for the movie’s welcome new release, has promised to fit any critic who reveals too much of the plot with a pair of cement shoes.

But the greatest surprise is the movie itself. Mr. Lattuada, who died in 2005 at 91, has long been overshadowed by his illustrious contemporaries, like Federico Fellini, with whom he shared directing credit on “Variety Lights” (1950). “Mafioso,” however, is of much more than historical interest. Broad and boisterous though it is, it demonstrates an exhilarating formal control, and manages to feel at once like a work of unfettered, even anarchic imagination, and a subtle observation of the world as it is.

The Sicilian locations are filmed (by Armando Nannuzzi) with the blend of lyricism and documentary sensitivity characteristic of neorealism, but Mr. Sordi’s performance and Piero Piccioni’s hurtling, jazzed-up score add a thrilling element of theatrical exuberance. Like the Badalamentis’ dinner table or their cluttered, crowded house, every frame of this movie is stuffed with oddities and delicacies, and the sheer range of moods and visual textures is downright intoxicating.

And somehow, most remarkably, in the midst of it all, a moving, nuanced portrait emerges of a foolish, decent man ensnared in the grand absurdity of modern life.

Directed by Alberto Lattuada; written (in Italian, with English subtitles) by Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri, Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli, based on a story by Bruno Caruso; director of photography, Armando Nannuzzi; edited by Nino Baragli; music by Piero Piccioni; art director, Carlo Edigi; produced by Antonio Cervi; released by Rialto Pictures. Running time: 99 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Alberto Sordi (Antonio Badalamenti), Norma Bengell (Marta), Gabriella Conti (Rosalia), Ugo Attanasio (Don Vincenzo), Francesco Lo Briglio (Don Calogero) and Carmelo Oliviero (Don Liborio).