Pasolini (Kino Lorber Blu-Ray Review)

Is Pasolini Treasure or Trash?

Blu-ray Distributed By Kino Lorber / September 17, 2019

The Roman life and the imaginary worlds of Pier Paolo Pasolini intermingle in Abel Ferrara’s retelling of the final days in the life of the fifty-year-old filmmaker and writer, in a lovely, haunting film that draws on his last interview and envisages scenes from an unmade final film and his incomplete novel, Petrolio. Willem Dafoe, regally exhausted, is the spitting image of the murdered director, and Pasolini’s beloved muse Ninetto Davoli returns to “finish” his friend’s work, but Ferrara wisely never attempts to merely ape Pasolini’s style, instead offering one iconoclastic artist’s tribute to another, a biopic that busts the boundaries of the form and a passion project decades in the imagining that gives Pasolini’s final moments on the beach at Ostia the terrible sanctity of the Passion.

Jamie’s Take (2 / 5)

For those looking for a bio picture on controversial film director / writer Pier Paolo Pasolini, look elsewhere. A big clue as to what you are getting into is the phrase: “A film directed by Abel Ferrara”. No stranger to controversy himself, Ferrera may be one of the most prolific and hit and miss directors out there. He has done horror (Driller Killer, The Addiction, Body Snatchers) gangster films (The King of New York, The Funeral) dramas (Bad Lieutenant) and documentaries (Chelsea on the Rocks, Mulberry St.) and unfortunately a vast array of forgettable, convoluted, and boring art films that has made me long for the days of being excited when I heard a new Ferrera film was being released.

Willem Dafoe (a Ferrera regular) stars as the late film maker in what may have been his last day(s) alive before being murdered by a gang of thugs because of his homosexuality. While there is speculation the film maker may have been killed due to his political beliefs (he was a communist) or he was being extorted due to his final film Salo, the movie decides to not make speculation about his death. I would have found this more interesting if Ferrera and company went a different route by deciding to tell a different story on how Pasolini died. In an interview on the blu ray, Ferrera is pretty clear that he feels this was the way Pasolini was killed.

But the film focuses more on the film maker’s rather mundane life and his strong relationship with his mother and actress Laura Betti (played by Maria de Maderios, best known for playing Bruce Willis’s girlfriend in Pulp Fiction). As he is finishing up touches of what would become his final film Salo, Pasolini spends his evenings cruising around Rome looking for young men to meet.

Pasolini does have some strange moments of confusion with the film breaking narrative and showing scenes of possible visualizations of two projects he was working on at the time that comes off as jarring and out of place. While at times incoherent, these moments are rather “arty” so to speak. Shifting focus from Pasolini to what could have been his later work disrupts the fluidity of the film and thus, the movie ceases to entertain but decides to confuse. I would have preferred to have seen Pasolini in the final stages of making Salo or hearing more of his rants about society and politics.

Dafoe shines as Pasolini but that should come as no shock as Dafoe is pretty much great in just about anything (and I admit, I even liked him in Speed 2). I also really enjoyed some of the sweeping camera shots and seeing the city of Rome as to how it looked in the mid-70’s. There are moments of Pasolini that I enjoyed but the film ultimately fails to impress and leaves the viewer wanting more. With a running time of under 90 minutes, one can hardly say they learned something new about Pasolini. I can even see viewers unfamiliar with the artist walking away from the film wondering; “What was the big deal about this guy?”.

Kino Lorber’s transfer looks stunning and I can say I have no complaints whatsoever regarding the picture and sound. The film only does have three special features: an interview with Dafoe and Ferrera which is quite entertaining, a short behind the scenes look at the making of the film, and finally the trailer. I would argue an audio commentary by both star and director would have been more satisfying.

While there are worse Ferrera films out there (I’m looking at you, ‘R X-mas) Pasolini isn’t one of his better moments despite a subject matter that would have suited this film maker perfectly. The screenplay is really lacking and while the performances and direction is solid, I just found myself bored and at times lost.