Review of Accattone by Pasolini

This was my first film of Pasolini. I had watched a brief documentary about him on Fandor and was intrigued by such a complicated man. He is openly gay and a communist in Italy which is a country that put the Fascists in power for more than twenty years. So I think to myself does he have an audience? How was he accepted by Italians? Yet, he made a number of films and wrote several books. So, obviously, he had an audience. In analyzing this film I cannot refrain from mentioning the stark differences between Pasolini and Fellini which are probably the Italian filmmakers I know best. Fellini's films have the heir of bourgeosieness, whereas, at least Accattone has a very proleterian style. It is very explicit in contrast to Fellini's films which are more restrained.

Accattone centers around a pimp. It deals with prostitution, in fact, that is the action of the entire film. I was quite shocked when Accattone's prostitute is beaten up by a group of Italian men. I had premonitions that something bad was going to happen and they were confirmed. Afterwards the movie spirals downward into the morass of working class Italy. The scenes of urban poverty were striking. Several shots were memorable and quite a contrast to Fellini's aerial shots of Rome, or his shots of bustling streets in the Italian capital. It is also devoid, as the nytimes.com reviewer has said, of passion. There is no intellectualism like in Fellini's 8 1/2. Accattone is merely a presentation of how things are. This is the way life is, devoid of morality of any sort of reason. Life is a struggle to survive, whether that means backstabbing your friends, stealing from your son, or pimping out a naive girl.

I'm reminded of Rosselini's Germany year zero. Everything is broken. Buildings are devastated, there is no God, no morals. Like the boy in Germany Year Zero, Accattone does morally reprehensible acts without much consequence. He also meets a tragic end. In both films we see characters trying to live in a World that is destitute and offers them nothing but tragedy and hardship.

Several of the walking shots stuck out in my head. They were tracking shots that really looked improvised. I like how they showed Accattone walking and talking to his prostitute. The shots were very intense, similar to the "shaky" camera that is so popular in contemporary Cinema. I also liked the shots of Accattone and his friends at a Cafe. The headshots showed off Italian style and gave a glimpse into what life was like when the film was made.