Why

Why (Detenuto in attesa di giudizio, 1971) is Nanni Loy's bitter Italian tragicomedy, available to watch online on iFILM. Giuseppe Di Noi, a builder who has spent seven years in Sweden, drives home with his wife and kids for a holiday — and the moment he crosses the border, he is arrested without a word of explanation.

What follows is a descent through the gears of the Italian prison system. Nobody will tell him the charge. Overcrowded cells, transfers from one town to the next, indifferent guards, paperwork that leads nowhere. Alberto Sordi, normally a comedian, plays it almost straight: his Di Noi erodes before your eyes from a confident family man into someone so worn down he no longer knows whether he's guilty. Elga Andersen plays the foreign wife for whom this country is now utterly alien.

Loy aimed it as a furious satire of a justice system where the absurdity cuts deeper than any verdict, and the role won Sordi the Best Actor prize at the Berlin Film Festival. It's for anyone drawn to the harsh social cinema of the seventies, where the laughter sticks in your throat. Stream Why (1971) online on iFILM.