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This is the first of Pasolini's three feature-film adaptations of obscene tales of antiquity, the other two being "The Canterbury Tales" and "The Arabian Nights." It contains ten of Boccaccio's most famous tales… The bawdiest story concerns a merchant who back-doors his partner's wife by promising to tell her his secret of turning a woman to a female horse and back to a woman again...

The tale of the two lovers sleeping together on the terrace is quite nice and very erotic, but the most hilarious one involves a young man who pretends he's a deaf mute in order to get into a convent... Once inside, he discovers that the sisters are very curious about all the excitement the world has made over sex and want to find out if it is worth it...

The stories are quite funny and the acting is adequate especially for non-professionals… But the film's charm is in its unrefined energy…It spends as much time showing nude men as it does showing nude women, which was quite unusual for its time

Pier Paolo Pasolini has with the Decameron what is supposedly one of his "happiest" movies. This is not to say the film is always cheery- matter of fact a couple of the stories deep down are pretty dark and sad and cursed thanks to the repression of religion and mortal sins- but Pasolini's comedy here is sharp and his wit comes out in the obscene or in the random. It's a little like Bunuel only with a more earthy sensibility with the locations and slightly less surreal situations; it doesn't mean that Pasolini is any less ambitious with treating the foibles and stringent ways of the Catholic Church.

The Decameron's only big liability, in my estimation, is that it could be easy to get lost in the structure Pasolini sets up; it's nine stories, ranging from a Sicillian being swindled after finding out he's a brother to a sister of royalty until he's covered in feces, to a supposedly deaf-mute boy who becomes the sex toy for a bunch of sex-starved nuns, to a supposed 'Saint' who fools a priest into thinking he's such with his lackluster confessional, to a girl being met by her boyfriend on the roof and then being (joyfully) caught by her parents since his family is wealthy. They're all interesting stories, more often than not, with even a really short piece like the priest attempting to seduce his friend's wife providing something amusing or eye-catching visually.

But, again, all of these stories go from one into the next without much warning, and one may wonder when the next story really begins or if it's a continuation of the last. As it turns out, like the Phantom of Liberty, it's very stream-of-consciousness and one skewering of morality and sex can bleed easily into the other. And yet some may find this to be a more daring strength than others; certainly it's a very funny movie (if not quite as funny as Pasolini's masterpiece The Hawks and the Sparrows), like with the bit of the guy caught in the tomb, to the frankness of the parents asking the boy to marry their daughter on the rooftop - even just the strange feeling one gets watching the painter (played by, I think, Pasolini himself) in the act of creating an unusual but unique work on a church wall.

The greatest thing of all, for fans of the subversive, is that nothing is out of bounds for Pasolini, via his source material of the Boccaccio book, and he never is one to ever shy away from sex. That's also another asset this time around- unlike Arabian Nights we get some actually erotic bits thrown in the midst, if unintentionally, and on occasion (i.e. the shot following Lorenzo as he runs by the fence) the director conjures something powerful amidst the medieval/surreal/neo-realist pastiche. 8.5/10

The erotic and more or less picaresque stories of which this movie is composed is based upon a collection of tales written in the 14th century by Bocaccio an Italian writer already called the Voltaire of 14th century. In the Middle Ages there was a tendency later abandoned, of considering erotic adventures under a humoristic point of view. The most common "hero" of those tales was the cuckold husband. I'm not a great fan of Pasolini. However this movie is more or less successful in depicting a series of funny situations related with erotic entanglements. Its merit is more due to the narrative form than to the stories itselves some them less funny than others. But the composition of the successive scenes develops in a series of pictures full of colour and movement portraying the people in the streets in a realistic way, showing popular types such as peasants, merchants, priests, nuns, etc. most of them with no make-up at all which contributes to create a vivid atmosphere that really puts us in the middle of a mediaeval scenery. Not a masterwork but something worth to be seen anyway.

Pasolini freely adapts ten or so episodes from Boccaccio's fourteenth century collection of hundred short stories. He interweaves the tales of happy or tragic lovers, naughty nuns and lusty priests, naive husbands and cheating but quick-witted wives, inept grave robbers, and a young gardener who got more than he had bargained for, with his own meditations on art, life, death and love. Pasolini himself plays a painter Giotto who observes the characters that inspire him to paint a fresco on the church's wall.

"Decameron" is the first part of Pasolini's "Trilogy Of Life", which continues with adaptations of two other celebrated works of world fiction; "The Canterbury Tales" (1972) and the "Arabian Nights" aka "A Thousand and One Nights" (1974). All these books have been known as distinguished and revered works of literature that belong to the immortal classics. There are probably so many big volumes have been written about them that it would take more than a thousand and one days and nights to read them. They talk about love, death, the meaning of life, and religion but first and most of all – they entertain. At the time they were told and written down, no one would think of them as the future academic references. That's why they are so alive, earthy, coarse, and bold. I have not seen two other Pasolini's films but 'Decameron' captures the original spirit of Boccaccio's tales truthfully and with love, humanity, and perfect sense of the medieval Italy.

The film has a look of a renaissance painting – not only Italian Renaissance (Giotto) but Netherlandish Northern Renaissance - Peter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch.

As he often did, Pasolin used in the film the non-professional actors to play the medieval peasants. They had none of the Hollywood glamor or classical features or perfect teeth and smiles– but their faces are interesting, original, and real.

Full of rustic comedy and innocence, earthy humor and lust for life –"Decameron" is one of the most optimistic, and celebrating life films ever made. Its sexuality is straightforward and honest, moving and not insulting. This film, my first Pasolini made me want to see the rest of the trilogy and the rest of his films.

The first of what became Pier Poalo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life, with each film adapting stories from archaic literature. In this case, Giovanni Boccaccio's book of the same name, written in 14th century Italy. The film takes nine of the 100 stories from the book and weaves them into vignettes of everyday Medieval life. We see nymphomaniac nuns, grave robbing, deceit, and cuckolding. In one segment, a boy is lured into the house of a pretty girl. She tells him that he is her brother. however, after taking his clothes and money, the boy is thrown out, where he is picked up by a couple of thieves who recruit him to climb inside of a tomb and steal the recently dead archbishop's ruby ring. The boy is left trapped in the grave.

This bawdy romp is a lot of fun. This was a surprise being Pasolini. The portmanteau style storytelling works well with this roaming tour through a debauched, ancient landscape. Many of the oddball characters were non- actors (something Pasolini had used throughout his career), and some have such incredibly rickety teeth, and are a strange and uncomfortable, yet thoroughly enjoyable watch.

The film ends with a statement by Pasolini himself (he played the painter, Giotto between, and within some of the stories), which is possibly a statement about the dream like quality the narrative has in its assemblage of the parts. He says: Why create a work of art, when you can just dream about it? Indeed, why create narrative cinema, when you can manoeuvre through scenes of life and create a patchwork of living, permeated with verisimilitude.

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Whenever I watch a Pasolini movie, I am invariably caught by sorrowful spasms at several very obvious technical flaws:

1) Why is dubbing used so poorly? Why is the speech so often out of sync? Why, oh why! (Note that until very recent times many Italian flicks suffered from this. I personally believe this is one of the many reasons why Italian cinema, with a few exceptions, has had such a poor diffusion abroad. Movies are made so much more palatable by something as relatively simple as good lip syncing).

2) Acting is mostly very poor. I am not a fan of the actors used by Pasolini. I know very well that he uses non professional actors for a reason, that is to draw more genuine emotions from them, to impress the public with fresh, interesting faces, etc. But I think that, while these effects are only partially achieved, the acting is, simply put, horribly directed. There are other instances of movie makers working with non professional actors, and it is not always bad. But with Pasolini it mostly is. In this movie (as in others) acting looks so unnatural, see e.g. Ninetto Davoli in the first episode. Of course this is magnified by what I said at point 1.

3) Editing is another problem. Cuts are of uncanny lengths leaving too much silence after some character has spoken, or no silence at all. The pacing of sequences, while resulting in a certain naïveté of the narration (something that I think was intended), is mostly erratic and inconsistent.

4) Close-up abuse! When you have cast weak actors/actresses with uninteresting faces that are very poorly dubbed, the worst you can do is punctuating your movie with close-ups! And this is exactly what happens in Il Decameron. (See for example the first episode when the two burglars speak in front of the sarcophagus, with the camera shifting between the two's frontal close-ups, an especially uncanny effect).

I wonder if all of the above are deliberate choices or it is just that Pasolini is not a good filmmaker in those areas. Or maybe it is just me. And the reason I say so is that I have not found (so far) reviews, especially from Italy, that significantly criticize any of those points. However, if you compare Pasolini with the craftsmanship of Italy's greatest director, Federico Fellini, it should be evident that PPP is very far from FF's technical mastery. I am not talking about their artistry or weltanschauung, just of their technical capabilities. Fellini had wonderful actors, who were well dubbed (or self-dubbed) in well edited movies, especially in the early-middle phase of his career. Now, the reason I bring forth Fellini is that Italian critics, while recognizing Fellini as superior, never seem to disprove of the obvious (for me) technical problems that oftentimes make PPP's pictures barely watchable, as if their director's intellectual worthiness, which was testified by his literary accomplishments (Pasolini was a novelist and a poet), were enough by themselves to justify the quality of his cinematic efforts.

The above rant on technical faults is made all the more painful by Pasolini's patent inventiveness, coupled with solid narrative and figurative vigor. I still think that Pasolini is a great filmmaker, notwithstanding all I have said. In Il Decameron, he does capture somehow the popular grace of Boccaccio's short stories. The characters, the landscapes, the architecture, the use of dialect, all contribute to the rendering of a stunning fresco of Medieval Italy, a land where religious superstition, joie de vivre and mockery seemed, and still seem, to be all one.

When you think of how beautiful and gracious the canvas outline comes out, then you can't help cursing the blotches caused by the violent, seemingly uneducated brush strokes of the maestro. And going back to the Italian critics, I really think they got it all wrong in not criticizing Pasolini's style during his career as a director, because all the praise he received from them did not stimulate him to reconsider his technique, so his entire production came out regrettably flawed.

Pasolini's films are not for everyone. They are slow moving and play on archetypes, but I can think of no one who captures myth as well he does in his `Trilogy of Life' (The Decameron, The Arabian Nights, and The Canterbury Tales). Pasolini does as delicious job of weaving the mythical and poetic into everyday life. He uses real people instead of actors, and presents sexuality innocently and sensually. Staying away from the sexual violence so common in films of this era, and the soft porn haze we see in Hollywood films today. These universal stories are presented much the way they were written, simply and earnestly. The effect for me has always been pure magic.

Director Pasolini films nine tales from the Decameron. Most deal with sex (very explicitly) but almost all show a very ribald sense of humor. Easily the director's most cheerful film--it's best described as "earthy".

I liked it but I didn't love it. Some sequences are better than others and the film does drag in places. Also it has some really mean swipes at the Catholic Church. Most surprising is the film's original X rating here in America was lowered to an R in 1991. I'm not complaining but I'm really surprised (and pleased) that the ratings board did that. It (obviously) got the X for the frequent nudity--both male and female--including one shot with a man at "full attention". But the nudity is treated casually and in a wholesome sort of way--not as something dirty or to be ashamed of. It's not exploitive in any way. Still, this isn't for children.

So, pretty good and worth seeing at least once. A hundred times better than his dreadful "Salo".

The unapologetic choice of ancient, crumbling and dirty locations, coupled with the choice of "real-looking" actors devoid of manufactured graces made this film feel right. 14th century Italy surely was as full of natural humour, even in close proximity to death, as this film makes out. Casual sex in spite of the threat of mortal sin is treated likewise with candour. A real masterpiece showing humanity in all its various forms.

I remember that I first heard of Pier Paolo Pasolini in John Waters's "Cecil B. Demented", and I interpreted that he was a very arty, non-mainstream director. I then read about how he always infuriated the Catholic Church, and they often took him to court (I get the feeling that his open homosexuality might have also gotten to them), and was brutally murdered in 1975.

So, I've finally seen one of his movies. "Il Decameron" (or "The Decameron", depending on which language you want to use) tells several stories of life in a medieval-to-Renaissance Italian village. There's lots of sex to go around (especially in places where it's not supposed to happen), and any gross thing that you can think of will probably happen. But believe you me, Pasolini knows how to make it fascinating; after all, who doesn't love some debauchery now and then? So anyway, this is definitely the sort of movie that you would watch for film history classes and things like that. Not at all a movie for the world's straight-laced factions. But I certainly liked it, and not just because Caterina was really hot. This movie is an important part of film history, Italian history, and other things. You just might want to go to Italy after watching it.

Has its moments but mostly uneven, with atrocious performances.

Nine stories from Giovanni Boccaccio's novel of the same name. Directed and written by Pier Paulo Pasolini.

Some of the stories are interesting, even amusing but none of them really hit the mark in a big way. Most feel anti-climatic, and needing of more substance. Some are just plain pointless and/or over before they've even started.

There are some recurrent themes, especially those of morality and religion, but nothing really gets tied up.

I kept hoping for something that would connect all the different stories, to make them collectively profound, but nothing came.

The closing line of the movie was one rare moment of profundity though, but it didn't really have a context.

Then there's the acting. The performances in this movie are incredibly bad. Think primary school play bad. There's a handful of exceptions but it's a cringefest from start to finish.

Pier Paolo Pasolini might be the most underrated director of all time. You hear almost nothing about him nowadays, except how disgusting Salo was. But, in my mind, Pasolini ranks evenly with the other great masters, Fellini, Visconti, De Sica, Antonioni, and Rosselini, perhaps better than them. Pasolini is probably the most humane of all of them (even when considering Salo). The Decameron is a perfect representation of Medieval European humor. Perhaps those unfamiliar with Medieval literature should avoid it, but all Medievalists must see it at some point. The stories are hilarious, and the human stories are beautiful. Just take a look at any face in the film. Pasolini is such a great lover of beautiful faces. Not that all the faces represent the standard concept of beauty, but the ones that might be considered ugly are exceedingly beautiful.

This is a peculiar rendition of 9 stories from Bocaccio's "Decameron" set on the 14th Century Italian . An explicit adaptation of classy portmanteu with adequate sets , gorgeous photography , humor and interwoven with strong sexual scenes . As various Boccacio tales were adapted , most notably : A young man from Perugia is swindled twice in Naples , but ends up rich; a roguish youngster goes into a convent with unexpected and erotic consequences ; a woman must hide her lover when her husband comes home early ; a scoundrel fools a priest on his deathbed ; three brothers take revenge on their sister's lover; a teen lies on a roof with a beautiful young girl when their parents appear ; a group of painters wait for inspiration and with Pasolini as Giotto ; and two friends make a pact to find out what happen after death.

An acclaimed , if sexually explicit retelling of a handful of the Boccaccio tales . Here Pasolini has loosely modeled a recounting of Boccaccio's famous tales that were previously adapted and very smoothly in ¨Nights of Decameron¨ (1953) by Hugo Fregonese with Joan Fontaine . Pasolini manages in his uninhibited fashion to capture the bawdy and anarchic spirit of Boccaccio . This is episodic romp in which Pier Paolo is up to his old tricks satirizing the Church , social habits , lower classes and throwing in liberal doses of love and life . However , the sights of the interminable assembly of seemingly toothless villagers Pasolini picked up as extras can be a bit embarrassing . As well as the endless sex scenes and bad taste can be a little intimidating . By the time these escenes were considered obscene , and some images deemed blasphemous. It was initially banned in Italy , and many other countries for several years . The best episodes are the followings : when a young man poses as a deaf-mute in a convent of curious nuns ; when a young girl sleeps on the roof to meet her boyfriend at night and when a crafty priest attempts to seduce his friend's wife . This ¨Decameron¨ is adorned by beautiful cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli , evocative production design and art direction by Dante Ferreti , and enjoyable score by Ennio Morricone ; equally , there are lots of nudism : more male than female , homoeroticism and disagreeable scenes . Pasolini's film career would then alternate distinctly personal and often scandalously erotic adaptations of classic literary texts . As this first intallment of his trilogy of life was followed by Tales of Canterbury (1971) based on Godofredo Chaucer tales and finally the third ¨The Arabian nights¨ featuring 10 of the old Scherezade favorites .

The motion picture was well directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini who was member of the Italian Communist Party from 1947 to 1949 and he was expelled because of his homosexuality. He was also a poet, a painter , actor and a novelist. He frequently casts Franco Citti and Ninetto Davoli and non-professional actors as in The Decameron . In his movies he shows his own more personal projects, expressing his controversial views on Marxism, atheism, fascism and homosexuality . His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life of a pimp in the slums of Rome caused a sensation . He was arrested in 1962 by his contribution to the portmanteau film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) . It might have been expected that his next film, Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) , here Paolo presented the Biblical story in a totally realistic, stripped-down style, would cause a similar fuss but, in fact, it was rapturously acclaimed as one of the few honest portrayals of Christ on screen . Subsequently , he made a Greek rendition : Oedipus Rex (1967) . And other films as the Neorrealist Mamma Roma with Anna Magnani , Porcile , The Grim Reaper , Accatone , Il Bell' Antonio , That long night in , and , of course , ¨Trilogy of life¨. Finally , Salo or the 120 day of Sodom that was deemed extremely violent , obscene and Pasolini being judged , condemned and given a suspended sentence by the Italian courts , being a mercilessly grim fusion of the Marquis de Sade's story with Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy , showing the sinister connection between consumerism and Nazism. Pasolini was murdered in still-mysterious circumstances shortly after completing the film.

Yeah, I "get" Pasolini and his milieu, but at the same time, I feel his "Decameron" is largely overrated, and more than a little disturbing. Overrated because the supposed "realism" he introduces (milling crowds, crumbling architecture, etc.) are mooted by the absurd and downright goofy way that the characters behave. In the pursuit of realism, Pasolini utilized many non-actors, but their deer-in-the-headlights stares and painfully awkward line delivery gives the whole a terribly off-kilter and inconsistent feel. And frankly -- many of the toothless, misshapenly-featured people are painful to look at.

And Pasolini's "Decameron" is disturbing (to me at least) because of the casual and prevalent homosexual content. Not because I'm prudish or homophobic (I'm neither) but because the emphasis that Pasolini places upon homoerotic images and situations is contrary to the neo-realism he otherwise espouses, so it comes off as gratuitous and forced. One can almost hear him say "Ooh--I've got to stick a cute, naked boy in this scene!" At times it seems that Pasolini is trying to play up the homosexual angle to thumb his nose at critics, and at other times because he enjoys that aspect himself, regardless of what his audience might prefer.

The disjointedness of the 9 or 10 different stories in Pasolini's "Decameron" struck me as being a failing of Pasolini as a storyteller, rather than being an aspect of neo-realism. He seems to get bored with each story and so he wraps them up rather unconvincingly and with little conviction. Even the Pasolini's final line of dialog in the film, which some people seem to find pithy ("Why create a work of art when dreaming about it is so much sweeter?") -- to me, it just makes me wonder why Pasolini would bother making a film if he felt this way? In my opinion, a far better-crafted film (and with MORE homosexual content) is Fellini's "Satyricon". It is also full of bizarre-looking people and absurd situations, but it succeeds because of its pacing, direction and strong storytelling whereas "Decameron" fails by those same elements.

Film lovers know "Andrei Rublov," that Russian film about an icon painter. The beauty of the film comes in part because the filmmaker is on the same quest as his character, and that quest has as its core the discovery of beauty. The interesting thing about movies is that they create and sustain a fantasy world that lives beyond any one movie and into which we assume each movie is born. That world has its own type of beauty, one born of color and glamor and poise.

Paosolini does the same thing as Tarkovsky, but where Tarkovsky dealt with cosmic beauty and recognition, this artist has simpler goals: to engage with flesh, to flow with the simple streams of ignoble daily motion, and to discover beauty in that plain world.

Oh, what a terrific cinematic place to visit! This is a far from that collection of movie metaphors and beauty as we can go. There is no movie acting here. There is no external beauty. There is no recourse to familiar characters or representation. As usual, he draws his source material from matter that is not only before cinema, but before any popular writing.

And he works with that material outside any movie tricks. Well, he still has that Italian tendency to believe that the world is populated by characters and not situations or any sort of fateful flow. Just people who do things. Lots of little things, usually associated with pleasure.

So if you are building a world of cinematic imagination you need to have this as one of your corners. That's silly, every one of us is building a cinematic imagination — we cannot avoid it. What I mean to say is that if you are building an imagination, some of which you understand and can use, some of which you actually want and can enjoy without being sucked into reflex...

If you want to just relate to people as people and test how easy it is to find grace in the strangest of faces, then this is your movie voyage for the night.

One rather shocking thing is how the nudity works. In "ordinary" film, we thing nothing of seeing two people humping and moaning, nude pelvises grinding is the most hungry of ways. But we gasp when some genital is shown. Here, the exact reverse is found: no shyness about the obvious existence of genitals, an erection even. A sleeping girl with her hand in her lover's crotch. DIsplayed as if it were in the same cinematic territory as the faces he finds.

But when these characters lay on each other for sex, we have the most prurient of actor's postures. I think this was done simply to avoid an automatic sweep into ordinary film ways. It has that effect anyway.

I don't know anyone that chooses more interesting faces. Distinctly Southern European, odd atypical faces.

And finally, there is the bit of his own story inserted, the artist in the church. Creating scenarios of rich life. In the movie, the most amazing scenes are those that have little or nothing to do with the story. There's a "death" tableau that could be the richest single shot I have ever seen, anywhere.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Italians have always been quite fond of episodic films and thus Boccaccio's Decameron attracted many film makers over the years. This particular version though is solely responsible for an avalanche of medieval episodic sex comedies made in Italy in the first half of the 1970s. Most of these were either based on Boccaccio's Decameron or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, most of the others at least followed that style of narration.

Compared to its epigones, Pasolini's film is not quite as exploitative and more willing to confront the viewer with a coarse medieval approach to humour and conflict resolution.

An adaptation of nine stories from Bocaccio's "Decameron": A young man from Perugia is swindled twice in Naples, but ends up rich; a man poses as a deaf-mute in a convent of curious nuns; a woman must hide her lover when her husband comes home early; a scoundrel fools a priest on his deathbed; three brothers take revenge on their sister's lover; a young girl sleeps on the roof to meet her boyfriend at night; a group of painters wait for inspiration; a crafty priest attempts to seduce his friend's wife; and two friends make a pact to find out what happens after death.

Not surprisingly for the guy who gave us "Salo", the film contains abundant nudity, sex, slapstick and scatological humor. It is never as offensive as "Salo" is, but if you are easily taken aback by male nudity, you might want to shy away... because this film gives no care at all about your sensibility.

I am not sure what issue Pasolini had with the Catholic Church, but he pokes fun at it here, as he is known to do. You might think this would be a problem in a heavily-Catholic country like Italy, but yet he has gone on to be legend, not least of all because of his courage in courting controversy.

If you were ever to be in any doubt as to Pier Paolo Pasolini's scepticism of all things religious, then you won't be after this entertainingly surreal interpretation of Giovanni Boccaccio almost heretical 14th century novels. There are nine episodes here that deal with just about everything you would find in a dictionary of sin - fraud, lust, theft, more lust, murder, covetousness and yep - even more lust. A couple of the segments stood out for me. There's a deaf mute who manages to convince a convent of nuns that he an unique solution to many of their problems - and boy, are they keen. Then there are some rather ruthless grave robbers who don't care who's tomb they plunder. A priest who uses his ingenuity to have his wicked way with a parishioner's wife - whilst her husband holds the lantern and maybe my favourite that sees a girl's parents craftily arrange a marriage for their daughter after she's spent an erotic night on the terrace with her beau! It oozes satire pretty much throughout illustrating quite openly the hypocrisy of the church and of it's "employees: and very much exposing the do as I say not as I do mentality that prevailed not just in Italy, but pretty much throughout Europe at the time. It's not just the religious who get a pasting here, the aristocracy don't come off a great deal better as they try to use their money to buy some redemption down the line - much to the joy of the painters who have no such compunction. It has something of the medieval farce to it, and that can be hit or miss, but for the most part the underlying commentary from the director is well enough disguised in frippery and humanity to not look like a reverse indoctrination. We can readily laugh at multiple aspects of the plot simultaneously. Nudity abounds here with just as much camera adoration of the male body as the female, but usually that just adds to the humour of the stories rather than overtly sexualising them. It's maybe a little long, but it's quirky and the episodic nature of the presentation ensures there's certainly no time to get bored.

Though the title may suggest examples of the 10 commandments, it is a definitely incorrect assumption. This is an adaptation of 9 SEEMINGLY unrelated stories from Giovanni Bocaccio's 14th century "Decameron" story collection.

Set within a medieval Italian town's largely peasant population, it is a diatribe on the reality of sex (and its consequences) within that world and time. A realistic view of Life within this world, it sometimes feels like a journey back in time.

Given the depicted human element of its time, one can also see the more adventurous side of morality in its protagonists - as well as the ironies of Life, at times. Or it may also be viewed as a general satire of the Catholic Church's rules.

Nothing terribly special, but definitely interesting if one comes with no expectations or assumptions.

This is the first of Pasolini's so-called "Trilogy of Life"- adaptations of Renaissance story collections. Pasolini highlights the bawdy, anarchic nature of such literature to suggest a popular culture that was actually less oppressive and repressed than that of modern capitalism.

I watched the Trilogy entirely out of order and while I rather regret doing so, there might have been some advantages to this. I saw Canterbury Tales, the middle film and the slightest, before the last and first entries. In retrospect, Canterbury seemed more interesting to me than it really is because it was the film that introduced me to the style of the trilogy. In fact, as is common, the first and last entries of the series are the strongest.

I think this first film is my favorite of the three. Pasolini appears as an actor in all of these films, but it is here that he is the most important presence. Playing a master painter, he depicts himself trying to create sketches of the many stories we see on screen. His painting only depicts a part of what the film shows us, and the film only attempts to adapt a handful of the stories that comprise the epic poem, The Decameron. This is a statement on the fragmentary nature of adaptation and translation, and therefor of art itself. It also suggests strongly that only that which is fragmentary, which does not yearn for totality, can be liberating.

I mean we do get to see some male ... well nudity! So you know the Penis (secret) is out at times. And it does stand tall too ... well the few times you get to see it. Now this is not something that is explicit, right? But it does contain quite a lot of nudity and a lot of sexual situations ... so just be aware of that ... there is also a lot comedy too ... (ab)using a "mute" for their own pleasure to name just one ... well it may not sound funny, but it is meant to be.

Just be aware that this can also be offensive at times. Do not fall into that trap ... just enjoy this for what it is. Short stories that are meant to be amusing ... what I didn't know Pasolini did a two more movies ... I reckon with similar themes? It's not like they are sequels (even if they are kind of portrayed in that way on imdb ... it's they follow this movie ... so there is that) ... but they exist ... not sure if or when I will be watching those and how good I might find them ... or not. This was mighty fine.

Plenty of positive reviews on this site. The Decameron is great - the 14th-century book I mean. What I've read of it anyway, the writing is a mix of Saki and Tales of the Unexpected and holds up very well, in particular the tale about the Christian who hopes to convert his Jewish friend, who decides to go to Rome to observe the clergy to see what all the fuss is about, with unexpected results.

The film can't cover something like 100 tales in the book, but the director seems to handpick the bawdy ones for our (or his) delight. But the bawdiness is unerotic, as if to highlight how comical and debasing such lusty antics. And the 'punchline' - so excellent in the story I mentioned above (which doesn't feature) - is often so weak as to be unnoticeable. You wait for something more to happen, only to find, oh, it's a new story. Okay, that was it was it? What's more, there isn't the comic touch to milk some of the set-ups properly. Frankly, some of the Carry On films do this stuff far better. It's a shame they never set a Carry On film in the medieval era actually. On the plus side, the wonderful scenery stays with you, and it is good to see women who aren't the usual Hollywood example, it does change the mindset regarding the opposite sex a bit.

This is a rare example where the book (in particular the Penguin translation) is easier to dip into.