They’re a Weird Mob (1966)

☆ ☆ ☆

They’re a Weird Mob (1966) – M. Powell

Good-natured comedy about an Italian immigrant to Australia and the wacky culture into which he is adopted.  Michael Powell (of Powell & Pressburger fame) directed this extremely broad but affectionate tale that shares little in common with his previous outings except for an interest in “place”, the location (in this case, Sydney), and “people” or culture (in this case, a very blokey set of Aussies).  Powell doesn’t poke fun at Italians at all, although he doesn’t shy away at depicting the prejudice that some Australians showed (and still show?) to the “New Australians” who migrated here in the 1950s and ‘60s (from Italy and Greece).  Nino is meant to work for an Italian newspaper but it no longer exists and instead he finds work as a tradie, putting in foundations for houses.  It’s back-breaking work but he bonds with the other guys and eventually finds love as well, not with the Italian girl that he initially pursues but with the Anglo-Aussie sheila that owns the building from which his cousin’s newspaper company was evicted.  But all this plot is simply an opportunity to expose the world to some proper Aussie slang, their fondness for drinking beer, the beautiful vistas of Sydney (harbor, Bondi Beach), and most of all about mateship.  Yet, there is not an Aboriginal fella in sight and this is an Australia that is long gone in favour of a much more multicultural land where, in principle, everyone deserves a fair go, regardless of where they were born.