This nearly 60 year old film has found sudden popularity no doubt due to its sharing the name with the latest pop virus variant; However similarities end there for the film's title refers to its titular character. Omicron is an extraterrestrial agent working for an intergalactic organization whose goal is to conquer the earth! Unfortunately for the invaders, Omicron is neither competent nor motivated. In fact, Omicron suffers from job burnout and merely goes through the motions of spying simply to complete his mission and go home. Hilarity ensues.
Written and directed by Ugo Gregoretti, Omicron is classified as a sci-fi comedy, but that label is inadequate. It is more akin to political satire and Gregoretti knows his stuff well. In fact, this reviewer believes Omicron is as important a film as 1959's UK political comedy, I'm All Right, Jack. Both movies hilariously lampoon working conditions in large, manufacturing companies with sharpened veracity. They exemplify the new adage, 'It's funny 'cause it's true.' I will go so far as to say that Omicron goes a step further and parodies humanity in a way similar to Jonathan Swift's Lemuel Gulliver.
A plot point is that Omicron is a disembodied entity who 'possesses' factory worker Angelo Trabucco's body. Unlike Invasion of the Body Snatchers or other countless sci-fi flicks where the invader takes flawless control of their host victim, Omicron has trouble figuring out the controls! Like first learning to drive with a stick shift, Omicron's taking jerky control of Trabucco is textbook slapstick! All the actors in Omicron are wonderful, adding bits of business to their perfunctory roles thus elevating the production; But it is Renato Salvatori who steals the picture as Omicron/Trabucco, embracing his 'fish out of water' performance.
Because Trabucco was found in a park mistaken for dead and revives in the autopsy room, the police and the press become involved. It is while Trabucco lies on the autopsy table that Omicron establishes contact with his superior at The Ministry of Amalgamation for Planet Ultra. Gregoretti employs an interesting camera trick to take us 'inside' Trabucco to listen in on Omicron's conversation with The Minister. This device precedes Mork and Mindy by 15 years. The press makes tabloid hay out of Trabucco's recovery while the cops try to figure out if Trabucco is connected with a gang of Union provocateurs at the factory, called SMS, where he works. Omicron's control of Trabucco's physiology allows him to work faster and tirelessly at SMS which arouses the greed potential of the bosses and the ire of the Union members! Due to this 'eccentricity', the press dogs Trabucco. We now also see the genesis of an alien visitor becoming famous long before The Man Who Fell to Earth!
The story then focuses on Omicron's disgruntlement with his assignment, paralleling the Union versus Management conflict at SMS and his subsequent 'mission' to recon the humans to learn their weaknesses in order to invade. The scene in which he speed reads a library's worth of books is pretty funny and also poignant, in that Gregoretti reveals ourselves through a universal point of view.
The film has a jazzy score by Piero Umiliani. The version I watched had an odd opening where only the first few lines of dialogue were dubbed into English while the rest of the film was in Italian but subtitled in English. The script has a few plot holes but these go by fast enough not to mar the pace. The message of humanity's foibles laid bare should make you think.
Written and directed by Ugo Gregoretti, Omicron is classified as a sci-fi comedy, but that label is inadequate. It is more akin to political satire and Gregoretti knows his stuff well. In fact, this reviewer believes Omicron is as important a film as 1959's UK political comedy, I'm All Right, Jack. Both movies hilariously lampoon working conditions in large, manufacturing companies with sharpened veracity. They exemplify the new adage, 'It's funny 'cause it's true.' I will go so far as to say that Omicron goes a step further and parodies humanity in a way similar to Jonathan Swift's Lemuel Gulliver.
A plot point is that Omicron is a disembodied entity who 'possesses' factory worker Angelo Trabucco's body. Unlike Invasion of the Body Snatchers or other countless sci-fi flicks where the invader takes flawless control of their host victim, Omicron has trouble figuring out the controls! Like first learning to drive with a stick shift, Omicron's taking jerky control of Trabucco is textbook slapstick! All the actors in Omicron are wonderful, adding bits of business to their perfunctory roles thus elevating the production; But it is Renato Salvatori who steals the picture as Omicron/Trabucco, embracing his 'fish out of water' performance.
Because Trabucco was found in a park mistaken for dead and revives in the autopsy room, the police and the press become involved. It is while Trabucco lies on the autopsy table that Omicron establishes contact with his superior at The Ministry of Amalgamation for Planet Ultra. Gregoretti employs an interesting camera trick to take us 'inside' Trabucco to listen in on Omicron's conversation with The Minister. This device precedes Mork and Mindy by 15 years. The press makes tabloid hay out of Trabucco's recovery while the cops try to figure out if Trabucco is connected with a gang of Union provocateurs at the factory, called SMS, where he works. Omicron's control of Trabucco's physiology allows him to work faster and tirelessly at SMS which arouses the greed potential of the bosses and the ire of the Union members! Due to this 'eccentricity', the press dogs Trabucco. We now also see the genesis of an alien visitor becoming famous long before The Man Who Fell to Earth!
The story then focuses on Omicron's disgruntlement with his assignment, paralleling the Union versus Management conflict at SMS and his subsequent 'mission' to recon the humans to learn their weaknesses in order to invade. The scene in which he speed reads a library's worth of books is pretty funny and also poignant, in that Gregoretti reveals ourselves through a universal point of view.
The film has a jazzy score by Piero Umiliani. The version I watched had an odd opening where only the first few lines of dialogue were dubbed into English while the rest of the film was in Italian but subtitled in English. The script has a few plot holes but these go by fast enough not to mar the pace. The message of humanity's foibles laid bare should make you think.
