Shot amid the scenic splendor of the Alps, this postwar-set pastoral follows the fortunes of a young soldier who returns from the front lines to his home village faced with no prospects. Desperate to earn a living, he joins forces with a boisterous, free-spirited old man who teaches him the ropes of a most dangerous line of work: salvaging undetonated bombs leftover from the war for scrap metal. A tender, rollicking portrait of intergenerational friendship shot with a documentarian’s eye for naturalism, The Scavengers is an alternately lighthearted and serious variation on Olmi’s key theme: the tension between the demands of labor and personal liberty. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.