Der Schweinestall

I haven't seen too many Pasolini films. Hardly is there any humour thrown in this one. Unlike, say, Decameron which I really loved, which featured comical shorts, this one, is obscure and hard to explain.

I feel no need for explaining any metaphors, or finding 'what the poet wanna say', the two parallel stories have nothing obvious in common, and while one of them has no dialogues at all (visually impressive, though) the other one is full of it. Interesting dialogues, for love, lust, passion, politics.

For desert there are (for once more) two or three bits of Pasolini's denial of God. I can't help but like such statements! Recommended only to Pasolini fans and fans of old, 'arty' euro-films...

With this, I only have one more Pasolini feature to go and I have seen all of them (the missing culprit being Accatone). Porcile does not represent Pasolini at his best. It's far too abstract and obscure. Two stories alternate, one taking place in a quasi-legendary time and one in modern times. The quasi-legendary scenes concern a young cannibal, some rapists and murderers. The modern sequence concerns some former Nazis living in Italy. One of their sons, played by French actor Jean-Pierre Leaud, is sick of the evil, bourgeois lifestyle he leads. At one point, since he lacks any ambition, he throws himself into an intentional coma. I don't get it, especially how the two parts work together. Still, as a Pasolini fan, I have to admit that it is a strikingly made film. I especially liked the scenes set in the past. Pasolini regulars Franco Citti and Ninetto Davoli (the only actor, I believe, who appears in both parts of the film, although I have no clue why) come along for the ride. Pasolini fans should certainly see it, others should avoid. 7/10.

"Porcile" is fine if you have the patience and the will to endure its lost and bizarre images or its strange deviate messages. Reactions about it will be mixed, rarely reaching some certainty, but the one that's definitely is that this is one of weakest films ever directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It's too pretentious, looks like his own version of Godard's "Week End" but less brutal, less gross yet more confusing in its speech. Both films deal with world going to its ending, total destruction all around and all hope lost, and Socialism seems to be the good alternative for our better sake. The directors of both films mixed their political speech in the middle of the controversial and shocking images.

Two stories form the whole: 1) one young man (Pierre Clementi) who has killed his parents and ate their flesh walks around from village to village after being sentenced to perish in the vast desert. The only thing he'll be able to do is to kill whoever show up on his way and then eat them too. That's the story of the young cannibal, marvelously presented without words (he only has one spoken line repeated towards the ending). Beautiful cinematography, scary and thrilling sequences in it. 2) this story, very talky and quite messy brings Jean-Pierre Léaud (who was also in "Week End") as the son of an German industrialist who can't connect with people, preferring the company of the pigs ("Porcile" translates to "Pigsty"). He tries some involvement with a girl (Anne Wiazemsky) but with no luck. And there's his father (Alberto Lionello) business deals with a former Nazi of name Herdhitze (Ugo Tognazzi) also businessman but a rival of his, who hasn't aged through the war years after successful plastic surgeries. Foggy speeches about life, politics, mankind are dissolved into this other story and it's very hard to form a whole idea.

They're apart in time but what they have in common? World going to an end, the destruction and corruption of societies, with everything out of control. Those are recurring themes in Pasolini works ("Teorema", "Salò" just to quote a few) but in here there isn't much going on to make them feel useful for all of us. This is a case that might look better in a book/screenplay/written work than filmed. The experience is distractive, confusing, rarely captivating even with the two known main stars, who had their voices strangely dubbed in Italian (I have my doubts about Pierre, I believe he really learned his lines in the other language). I like the film even though I can't connect with much of what's shown in it. The cannibal story is interesting; the one about the industrialist's son isn't all that much. The final result is chaos. Chaos in this problematic world that doesn't seem to get better. Well, at least in those predictions the master wasn't all that wrong.

Enjoyable but unsustainable for more than one view. 6/10

Pasolini's drama possess a strong sense of both, humor and commentary, told in the particular way only the director could be capable of, with great poetic-like dialogue, and strong-thought-provoking themes all over the two stories presented, about cannibalism and human relationships, and while the whole flick could be hardly digestible for most audiences, for the small-but-self-aware section that won't mind the twisted-raw depictions over the director's ideologies, this will represent quite the experience.

It's arguably his least accessible work.And probably his more boring too.Like in "Oedipe" ,or in "teorema" ,there is a mix of contemporary scenes and a tale of long ago ,which could happen anywhere ,in the Middle Ages or the antiquity -which Pasolini broached with his Gospel,Medea and Oedipe-.

"Porcile" bears the appropriate scars of the time .All the scenes between Jean-Pierre Léaud (fortunately,he is dubbed ,so the French -speaking do not have to hear his affected voice)and Anne Wiazemsky are terribly stodgy.The two "intellectual" "actors" epitomize ,as far as I'm concerned,the nadir of French acting.These interminable dialogs recall the dreadful rhetoric of GOdard's "La Chinoise" .

Things go better when Pasolini directs the fathers: one of them,a former Nazi has A skeleton in the closet and the other one's son is a zoophilist (check the title).As for the Pierre Clementi sequences -in an undefined past,which deal with cannibalism (I killed my father/I eat human flesh),the connection with the main plot escapes me,I fear.

A young person who wants to discover Pasolini should not begin with "Porcile" (or ,worse "Salo" )."Mamma Roma" "Il vangelo secondo Matteo" or "Medea" are wiser choices.