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Directors: Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kierostami, Ken Loach

Cast: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Carlo Delle Piane, Martin Campston

Duration: 109 minutes

The three directors had never met before they began this project. Ermanno Olmi, celebrated Italian director since the 1960s (Tree of Wooden Clogs, Legend of the Holy Drinker), told a producer that the directors he admired were the Iranian Abbas Kierostami (Through the Olive Grove, The Taste of Cherry) and England’s Ken Loach (Raining Stones, Ladybird Ladybird, Ae Fond Kiss). What if they were to make a film together? The result is Tickets. The action all takes place during a train journey from Austria to Rome.

The first part concerns an academic who has to go home by train because of an air strike. He remembers with fondness the kind PR woman who befriends him, buys him his ticket and stays talking with him while the departure is delayed. This is a miniature portrait as the professor sits in the dining car, reflecting. He also becomes aware of bullying military personnel and a migrant family they are pushing around. The family will reappear in the third part. This story is principally that from Olmi.

The second part is the most dramatically powerful. It is also striking in the way it is filmed despite the action being confined to carriages and corridors. This is principally the contribution of Kierostami (making a rare production outside Iran). The plot concerns an obnoxious (exceedingly), large, middle-aged widow of a general travelling to his memorial service accompanied by an increasingly put upon young man doing his national service. She wants a seat at any cost and makes a scene when the businessmen whose seats she has taken (in first class despite her second class ticket) want to claim them. She is haughty, surly, tries emotional blackmail and immovable stubbornness. When she does get a compartment to herself, she constantly and intrusively demands the attention of the young man who chats in the corridor to a young girl from his town. Eventually it is too much for him. Though she is monstrous in her behaviour, the final image of her, sitting bewildered on her cases alone on a platform, shows how pitiable she really is. Silvana de Santis is completely convincing as the woman.

The third story is unmistakeably Ken Loach. It was written by his now long-time collaborator, Paul Laverty. Two of the boys from Loach-Laverty’s Glasgow-set Sweet Sixteen appear as supermarket Celtic supporters on their way to a match in Rome. Their encounter is with the migrant family and their upset when one of their tickets is stolen. They squabble harshly amongst themselves but the pleading of the young woman with a baby makes them pause (they would have done the same themselves in similar situations they realise) but they are not sure what the truth is. The ending is happy, even triumphant, though cheeky and anti-authority.

Audiences can identify with the characters and the situations, observing fellow passengers, seats wrongly occupied, lost tickets… This is a microcosm portrait by three distinguished film artists.