Salo of the 120 Days of Sodom 1975

Pier Paulo Pasolini died for cinematic expression. He made films so challenging that someone killed him over it. It seems ludicrous but his final film is such a testament to honesty and fearless protest that you have to say Pasolini's death was worth it. He became a martyr.

In a decade of such unspeakable evil and corruption and many films that tackled it head on, Salo stands apart. It doesn't name names or even have to point in the right direction of the elite oppressors. It simply holds up a mirror to evil and lets the audience figure out who the monsters are. Every scene of this film is part of a sober and academic study of the structure of government and capitalist abuse of power. The very psychology and methodology of exploitation and sadomasochism are laid out in a realist horror film, an anti-porno, a satire of the worst tragedies. And the result is a truly hilarious and moving work of beauty.

Whats scary is how much of Pasolini is in the film... and how much of everyone is in this film. We, as victims of the social game, all empathize with both sides of the madness, the victims and the predators. Because the evil protagonists of this film are the protected and aspired to leaders of our world throughout the course of human history. When its "dog eat dog", the puppy is a snack and the closest thing to a hero is the closest thing to a wolf.

Are the shocking events in this film to be taken as metaphor or as presumed realistic accounts? It doesn't matter. Because the ideas exist and the systems of society let them exist. Total freedom is not the same as total morality. Total power is not the same as total superiority. How can anyone find a fabricated film so offensive but be utterly apathetic to the reality that inspired it? Pasolini's murderer only confirmed that the truth won't just set you free. It might drive you mad. Welcome to the mad world.

The Priest's Wife 1970 / Marriage Italian Style 1964 / Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow 1963

Bam! 3 Sophia Loren & Marcello Mastroianni films to review. Thanks, TCM.

I started with Priest's Wife, a very unusual rom-com which starts on a slapstick note and gradually winds down to a somber ultra-realistic reflection of human casualty. Its obvious that Sophia & Marcello were very game to push boundaries with their electric screen chemistry. They give audiences the darker, more obscure sides of male/female relationships. This one explores bureaucracy, fundamentalism, sexual experience, maturity levels & intense personal differences. While it is very mature and even tragic, its somewhat hopeful and vague. The filmmakers were respectful enough to let the viewer decide on the ending they want. Of course, the film is beautifully arranged, decorated and shot too courtesy of director Dino Risi.


Vittorio De Sica directs the screen couple in the next two films and wins a "Foreign Film" Oscar with Marriage. Its an excellent, theatrical piece of work where both actors flex light and dark sides of their souls. Its so much fun to watch them play off each other in various games of roleplay. The plot is fairly elaborate, operatic & testy. This was the 2nd (but earlier) film I've watched of theirs to use domestic abuse as a moment of high emotional bonding or romantic pretext. And very interesting that Scorsese would explore this in his films as well. Italians don't have a monopoly on abuse, but they don't shy from representing it in cinema. Its that touch of neorealism, that brooding and violent rejection of judgmental American artifice, that frees this subculture to address the uglier and steamier sides of human romance. The frankness of this film must have been so radical and yet its so commercial without selling out its Italian roots.

Yesterday is even earlier and even more radical. First, its an anthology rom-com that plays the same actors as very unsavory but human roles. This film studies the class difference of couples and the struggles that brings. Its all the most subtle and realistic of comedy with a very muted and mellow seriousness. One excellent touch is how De Sica personalizes the aesthetic of each short film. Story to story he toys with camerawork in the 3rd, lighting in the 2d and staging in the 1st. There are lots of other subtle distinctions to savor and analyze.

This was a big exposure to me. I'm very familiar with low rent grindhouse from Italy and I'm growing a huge appreciation for Italian arthouse, but hadn't found the big budget middlebrow productions like these rom-com's or what Sophia Loren was surprised to learn are called romantic "drama-edies". These films were meant to rival Hollywood's sanitized cheesecake films starring Doris Day & Lana Turner. They are not rip-off's but reactions, reversals and rejections. The spirit of Italian cinematists was more jaded and unwilling to repress or reproach from pressing psychological, emotional and sexual issues in home life. And we must thank them for it. These films played with the medium in less restrained or commercialized ways. They established a technical style highly influenced by theater and photography of Italian nature, fashion and still life. You can feel the exuberance the filmmakers had in just putting these films out into the global market while representing & speaking to their country primarily.

The films have aged nicely and they were beautiful to begin with. This is important & influential stuff and you revel in the fact that it still plays as relevant, immediate and sensual as it was then.

Death Laid An Egg 1968

I told myself while watching this, "this is one heck of a movie".

I was usually so caught up in the impeccable camerawork or stunning use of montage to make sense of the plot. But I think I understand it: a man is driven insane from the numbing experience of working at a chicken farm with 2 women who are fighting over him. The plot is extremely loose and a bit absurd but its full of clever metaphors for the social factors in his breakdown.

 Gian Piero Brunetta, author of The History of Italian Cinema, considered the film to be "worth remembering", comparing it to the works of Luis Buñuel and Michelangelo Antonioni. Brunetta felt the film held several thematic undercurrents, dealing with the conditions of farm labourers and the changing social attitudes towards the class system in Italy

I want to compare it to the work of Jess Franco because its so jazzy, surreal, sexy, psychological and obtuse... yet commercial. Its actually more polished and entertaining than the typical Franco film by a long shot and has the added poetics, social commentary and New Wave sensibility of maybe a Jean Rollin film. But this baby doesn't come from Spain or France. Its Italian. One of the most extreme Italian films I've seen from the period. Its somewhere between a Fellini & Bava, art & exploitation. Its a beautiful experiment in contrasts. A marriage of high and low art. Aesthetically and politically its very similar to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so that details its pedigree.

Essentially you want to see this if you love giallo AND "acid cinema". I imagine it was inspired by the radical commercial experimentation in the previous year's "Bonnie & Clyde", but "Death" manages to outdo it in sheer stylish lunacy.