Pasolini film review ★★★★★

Pier Paolo Pasolini holds the unique honour of being one of the twentieth-century’s most significant poets and film directors. Born in Bologna in 1922, he began writing poems at the mere age of seven. Drafted in the Second World War and captured by the German army, after the conflict he gravitated towards communism. His debut novel Ragazzi di vita (1956) revealingly depicted the post-war underclass, and was consequently disavowed by the Italian government.

Pasolini's career

Pasolini's entrance into film came in 1957 when he worked on dialect for Fellini; in 1961, his directorial debut Accattone transferred his concern for the poor to screen. Throughout the next decade and a half, he produced some of the most startlingly powerful works in all of cinema – The Gospel According to Matthew (1964), widely regarded as the best Biblical feature ever made; searing bourgeoisie satire Teorema (1968); the joyous literary adaptations of the Trilogy of Life (1971-4) and the hugely controversial Salo (1975), based on the Marquis de Sade’s writings. Pasolini’s unstinting work, radical views and homosexuality made him numerous enemies throughout his working life, and in 1975 he was run over repeatedly with his own car. The question of his murder has haunted Italy since, and it's this that's the subject of Abel Ferrara's latest film, entitled simply Pasolini. 

Pasolini film plot

Although he doesn’t know it, these are the final twenty-four hours of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s life. Editing one film while planning another, the controversial and darkly intelligent director is interrogated by journalists, visited by friends, discussing his convictions, passions and ideals.

Abel Ferrara’s meditative biopic of the great director restricts itself to a sliver of his existence, and in doing so becomes a poetic summation of his career, casting long-time Ferrara collaborator Willem Dafoe in the central role. Eerily accurate, Dafoe brings a pensive intellectualism to the part.

Director Abel Ferrara

Of Italian descent, U.S. filmmaker Abel Ferrara’s violent, absurdist works owe something to Pasolini’s extremity and obsession with the lowlife. Making his name with grindhouse shockers like The Driller Killer (1979), over the past thirty-five years he has directed a steady supply of films that seek to challenge their audience’s taste and moral values. Welcome to New York (2014), based on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn allegations, has been effectively censored in France – a turn of events Pasolini would have been familiar with.

The film will be released in September 2015 and is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in the man behind the macabre.