The World of Il Postino

The theme that I thought was most important and most prevalent in the film Il Postino is the effect we can have on each other as intellectual human beings. The fact is, that “to the world you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world.” This is shown throughout the film through Mario's progression because of his interaction with communist Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda.

Mario starts out as restless, unemployed, barely literate man with no girlfriend or direction in life. Although he was only curious about Pablo because he received numerous letters from women, he gained much more than just social skills from his time with Pablo. He learned how to think for himself. When Pablo first asked Mario why they didn't protest about the lack of running water, he merely shrugged and said it was always promised but never received. Later, Mario challenged Di Cosimo about the abrupt halt of work after he had been elected, saying that he knew it would happen. Mario finds that his opinions are just as valuable as anyone else's and now uses his voice to try to bring about change.

Mario's artistic abilities, as well as his intellectual tendencies, flourish under Pablo's tutelage. He learns not only to make metaphors, but to communicate with Beatrice through them. Although the metaphors are actually “borrowed” from Pablo's book, Mario makes a statement that indicates his progression when he says, “poetry is for those who need it.” Mario never needed poetry before. He has become dependent on the tidal ocean of words not only to advance his pursuit of Beatrice, but as a sort of renewal for his soul.

In the end, Mario becomes a hard-working man with a family and a purpose to his life. Although he had all his good characteristics in him already, they could not have surfaced the way they did unless Pablo had encouraged and challenged him to be more. Mario owes his progression to the catalyst Pablo presented to him, but owes who he became to the good already inside of him.