Pasolini
classified 18 SPlease note: This was screened in Sept 2015
The last day in the life of the great Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini is brought vividly to the screen by Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) with Willem Dafoe in a gripping central performance.
Pasolini was murdered on 2 November 1975, following an extensive and controversial career. With his writings and films deemed scandalous, Pasolini was locked in a censorship battle over Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, at the time. Pasolini reconstructs this last day in fragments, as the director spends time with his mother and friends, conducts an interview with a journalist and goes out at night in search of adventure - these are all moments that allow Ferrara to piece together the complex jigsaw puzzle that is Pasolini.
Ferrara also dramatises scenes from an unmade Pasolini film, imagining what his film might have looked like. Clever and inventive, this is a daring tribute to an uncompromising genius whose works remain prophetic and timeless. Ferrara and Dafoe have done his legacy justice.