I pugni in tasca

When this film first appeared in the 1960s, the effect was so startlingly individual: there had never been a film as bold, as seemingly unhinged, yet as ruthlessly controlled, as this first feature by Marco Bellocchio. The wonderfully atmospheric black-and-white cinematography seemed to be developed from some dingy dream which dared to bring out into the open the most heinous family secrets, yet the utterly dispassionate fury which animated the most frenzied sequences was so freakish it was almost funny. This constant tension somehow allowed for a sneaky kind of compassion to enter the movie, so that the family dynamics, though extreme, seemed to come out of a common nightmare. FISTS IN THE POCKET remains an embattled cry for a new society, by focusing on the remnants of the diseased upper classes, yet this tale of sound and fury seems to have been made in the kind of frenzied reverie that is analogous to the stream-of-conscious jumble which William Faulkner used at the beginning of THE SOUND AND THE FURY, and to the same effect, i.e., to chart a family's disintegration as a mirror to the decaying grandeur of a dying society.

The family in Marco Bellocchio's startling debut "Fists in the Pocket" make the Femms of "The Old Dark House" seem normal. These indolent Italians laze around all day taunting each other at every opportunity while son Allessandro, (a truly terrific Lou Castel), contemplates the best ways to rid himself of the others, including his blind mother, for the sake of the one brother he cares about. This darkly funny satire wasn't like other Italian films of the time, taking an almost putrid look at the family values Italians hold most dear; a comedy about matricide, fratricide and possible incest that actually manages to be quite touching at times. It's also a movie that takes its time. For a director making only his first feature, Bellocchio bravely put narraitve on the back-burner opting instead for an atmosphere as lazy as his characters and killing off a number of sacred cows in the process. The Establishment hated it while young critics loved it though not enough to make it anything other than a cult movie and it's seldom revived. Perhaps its reputation outweighs its numerous qualities but however you look at it, it's a one-off and well worth seeing.

The Sixties was a time of breaking rules and exploring social themes and political ideas that weren't allowed to be expressed in the repressive Fifties. It was a Golden Era of Italian cinema, producing Antonioni's, Visconti's and Fellini's best films, along with so many gems like Olmi's "Il Posto", Germi's "Divorce: Italian Style" and Monicelli's "The Organiser." "Fists in the Pocket" stands out for its dark subject matter, which examines the mind of a sociopath.

While this was not new ground—Clouzot's "Diabolique", Clement's "Purple Noon", Powell's "Peeping Tom" and Hitchcock's more lurid "Psycho" allowed us into the head of a killer—"Fists in the Pocket" portrays a much more nuanced character. What those films don't spend a lot of time on is the motivation behind their characters' actions, outside of their own amoral nature or perhaps some hinted trauma. In this film, while we certainly don't sympathise with the characters' actions, we clearly understand their motivations.

The protagonist of the film is Sandro, but I'd argue that the main character is the family, since it's the family dynamic that drives all action in the film. Sandro and two of his three siblings have varying degrees of epilepsy, and all three grown children live with and care for their blind mother. There's a definite sense of claustrophobia and dread in this family, who all seem trapped by their own love for each other. Their desire to break free of their mother's control and the burden of caring for each other leads to plans being hatched and tragic consequences.

It's quite an oddball story, almost Lynchian, but what makes the characters so utterly believable is the unpredictability of their behaviour, along with some excellent acting, particularly by Lou Castel, who allows us to see into his mind without saying a word. Add to that a soundtrack by Ennio Morricone and absolutely sublime photography—it's one of those rare films where you can frame almost every shot—and you've got one of the standout films from a standout period of filmmaking.

This first effort by writer/director Marco Bellocchio has been called a drama by some, and a horror film by others. It is both. It is neither.

It is a view of a dysfunctional family. I almost had the impression they cam from a long line of incest like The People Under the Stairs. One wants to get away, another has epilepsy, the mother is blind, one seems to be developmentally disabled, and the last, Giulia (Paola Pitagora)is really not classifiable, but she sure seems to spend a lot of time very close to her brother Ale (Lou Castel).

Ale feels sorry for his older brother, Augusto (Marino Masé) and hatches a plan to drive the rest of the family, including himself off a cliff so his brother can get on with his life.

His plan fails, so he starts doing them in one by one.

Watching him is mesmerizing. You just have to see what he is going to try next. In the meantime, the family just acts as crazy as you would expect.

Bellocchio went on to direct many more great films including A Leap in the Dark, The Prince of Homburg, and The Religion Hour. It is amazing his first was so good.

Beautifully filmed, with nice cinematography and camera movements, mostly in indoor footage, the novienis also interesting in its unique subject. While the development of the story is perhaps too slow in the beginning (although with some grat scenes), the film becomes incrisingly disturbing. Hatred for family, order and tradition is portrayed as aiming a final solution - if you understand what I mean... All members of the family (in different ways, all of them are overly self-centred) are well developped in their dysfunctional relationship, phisically represented in blindness, intellectual disability and epilepsy. Curiously, a "handicapped" himself is moved by a creepy cleansing impulse. Even his closest person, his beautiful sister, with whom he has a complicity relatiinship, is not out of danger.