Massimo Troisi Pours Himself Into the Poetic Il Postino

April is National Poetry Month, so I was tickled when I realized that the first movie to rise to the top of my Netflix queue this month was Il Postino, the 1994 Italian film about a humble villager who secures a job delivering mail to a famous poet. Directed by Michael Radford, the film is a tender and often very funny look at the way that a love of words can shape a person’s life.

Massimo Troisi, who also shares directing and writing credits, stars as Mario Ruoppolo, a gentle, unassuming fellow who lives with his cantankerous father and is fascinated by the effect that Pablo Neruda (Philippe Noiret), a Chilean poet in exile, has upon women. He first catches a glimpse of his popularity with the ladies in a newsreel announcing his arrival on their small island, and then he sees it first-hand when he takes a job as the poet’s personal postman and notices that virtually all of Neruda’s fan mail has been written by women. Mario, who is shy and awkward, begins to associate one with the other, and he wonders whether delving into poetry himself might help him out a bit in the romance department.

This romantic angle intensifies partway through the movie when he falls head over heels for Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), a young woman who works at a local eatery. But Mario’s curiosity about Neruda’s craft is hardly limited to its aphrodisiacal qualities. He is fascinated by the way words work and surprised that when he sits down to read Neruda’s poetry, it awakens feelings in him he didn’t know were there. It causes him to observe the world around him more intently and long to capture an ephemeral moment himself. As the days and weeks wear on, Mario begins peppering the poet with questions about his work, and gradually, the seasoned poet warms to him, becoming a mentor and even a friend.

As someone who has both read and written quite a bit of poetry, I loved the discussions between the wise but rather world-weary teacher and the naïve, eager student. Mario feels intimidated by the process of poetry and doesn’t believe that he is worthy to write it himself, but his visceral appreciation for it reveals that he indeed has the soul of a poet. Neruda seems to find Mario somewhat annoying but increasingly endearing, and he becomes more and more willing to spend time trying to answer his questions.

His lesson on metaphors is wonderful, as is his encouragement when Mario comes up with a metaphor of his own. He also speaks of the difficulty of trying to explain poetry, saying he can only use the words that he has chosen to describe a particular experience. He seems like he probably wouldn’t relish having his poems picked apart by overzealous English majors, a process Billy Collins amusingly describes in his poem Introduction to Poetry: “I want them to waterski / across the surface of a poem / waving at the author’s name on the shore. // But all they want to do / is tie the poem to a chair with rope / and torture a confession out of it.” So Mario doesn’t spend much time analyzing. He simply ingests Nerudo’s poetry and lets it work its magic upon him, and eventually he builds up the confidence to begin weaving some enchantment of his own.

This movie is originally in Italian, so I had to watch it with subtitles, but I didn’t mind too much; there’s something fitting about needing to do so much reading while watching a movie about poetry. I was surprised by how much the movie made me laugh. Mario has an understated but refreshing joviality about him, and some of the laughter is from sheer joie de vivre. There’s also some great banter between him and the snarkier Neruda, as well as his gruff boss at the postal service. Probably the single funniest character in the movie is Beatrice’s overbearing aunt, Donna Rosa (Linda Moretti), who is deeply suspicious of Mario’s motives once he begins wooing her. There’s a bit of slightly suggestive humor here, but it’s rated a mild PG, and that seems appropriate to me. I really wouldn’t say there’s anything objectionable, though it’s clearly a movie aimed at adults and I doubt it would interest most kids very much.

For the most part, this is a light-hearted, feel-good movie, so I was surprised to see it take a darker turn toward the end. The last act of the film is more subdued, and the focus shifts from the effect Neruda has had upon Mario to how the idealistic Mario has enriched the poet’s life. This is a movie that celebrates the qualities of great teachers and pupils, as well as where they may fall short. It’s romantic, funny and touching, and it demonstrates the power of poetry. The movie also presents the beauty of the town and countryside on this windswept island, and Franco Di Giacomo’s cinematography is like visual poetry.

I was saddened to read that Troisi was very ill when he made this and died of a heart attack the day after filming concluded. His performance is immersive and entirely winning; you can really feel that he is pouring himself completely into this role. For Mario and for Troisi, then, poetry brought both rewards and heartbreak. Knowing the background makes the film all the more bittersweet, but that’s certainly not a reason not to watch it. Il Postino is a lovely movie for those who love poetry and for those who love life.