
THE DECAMERON (1971)
\
The first (and best known) of the director's "erotic trilogy",
based
on the stories of Boccaccio.
Many hilarious and memorable segments. The film has
the feeling of a painting come alive,
full of color, comedy, seriousness, horror, and lots of sex.
The Decameron was the first of
director
Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life." The film,
based on the sexually supercharged tales of
Boccaccio, is a patchwork of many of Pasolini's
favorite themes, with a surprising endorsement
of heterosexuality-- specifically
female heterosexuality--included in the
proceedings.
Pasolini himself plays the role of an
aspiring fresco painter who is advised that
his completed work will never be as satisfying as
his dream of that work. Not one to make his
films accessible to a general audience, Pasolini
nonetheless enjoyed a positive public response
to The Decameron (a response due more
to the film's raw eroticism than the public's
grasp of Pasolini's messages). - ForeignFilms.com

The DUBBED version is ULTRARARE and
is funnier than the Italian language version (due to a better
than average dubbing job.) It
is no longer available on video, and hasnt been released to DVD.
(1:45)
(A) Italian with English
subtitles,
letterboxed
(A) dubbed, letterboxed

THE CANTERBURY TALES (1972)

The second film in his "erotic trilogy", it has some very funny
sequences
and performances (especially by Hugh Griffith as a whining man with
a cheating wife).
Based on the classic Chaucer stories.
Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini's
sexually
explicit retelling of The Canterbury Tales
take Chaucer's famous stories into the realm
of wild expressionism and beyond.
Filmed on location in England, the film brings
the bawdy world of Chaucer vividly to life,
complete with a rendering of hell that would
have made Hieronymus Bosch proud.
- Videoflicks.com
(1:50) (A) English language version, letterboxed

ARABIAN NIGHTS (1974)

The third of the director's "erotic trilogy" Hallucinatory
and trancelike,
a mysterious and exotic magic carpet ride of a film, with a haunting
musical score.
Legendary director Pier Paolo Pasolini
combines
the heroics and hedonism of the
classic Arabian tales with his dreamlike
vision
of bawdy pleasures and sublime sensuality
to create Arabian Nights, the masterwork of
"Trilogy of Life." In his carnal comic tale,
Pasolini follows the adventures of slave girl
Pelligrini as she rises to power over a great city.
Around her revolve the stories - episodes
of magic and lust, mystery and fantasy that derive
from the ninth century to the Renaissance.
Pasolini's Arabian Nights is his most stunning
accomplishment. He weaves exotic
spectacle,
eroticism, desire and delight into
a daring and debauched festival of the
bizarre.
- ForeignFilms.com
(2:10) (A) Italian with English subtitles, letterboxed
SALO, THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (1975)

One of the sickest films you will ever attempt to watch (these
photos
only hint at the
depraved sights in the film, I wont publish the more explicit
ones.)
A contemporary
version of the infamous Marquis DeSade novel, set in the last days
of WWII Fascist Italy.
Contains many unspeakably horrific scenes of the torture and
degradation
of a group of teenagers.
An extremely controversial film, the last
work
by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Loosely based on the book by the Marquis de
Sade, Pasolini transplanted the setting
to Mussolini's post-Nazi-fascist state of
Salo. Pasolini creates a symbolic place where
sexual joy and normality are punished while
perversion is rewarded. The plot concerns
eight fascists who round up 16 teenage boys
and girls and, in a secluded villa, submit
their hostages to various sadistic ordeals
including rape, mutilation and murder.
"Pasolini has intended the film to work on
many different levels: an illustration
of the moral anarchy of absolute power; the
debasement of sexuality through violence.
An exploration of victims as victimizers.
The result is, alternately, surreal, harrowing,
repulsive, and fascinating…a hellish
journey through a sick soul." -
1WorldFilms.com
(1:55) (A) - OP Italian with English subtitles, letterboxed
Contains nudity, explicit
sexual
situations and extreme graphic violence.
For mature audiences only.


PIGSTY (1969)
A bizarre but absorbing two-part parable which contrasts the saga
of a medieval
soldier-cannibal with that of the son of an industrial tycoon in
post WWII Germany.
Julian (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is the son of
German
industrialist Klotz (Alberto Lionello)
who seeks to go into business with the former
Nazi Herdhitze (Ugo Tognazzi). Herdhitze
had spent most of World War II collecting
human skulls for experiments with brain matter.
As a protest, Julian refuses to marry his
fiancT from a pre-arranged marriage, and he
becomes romantically involved with pigs. Part
two finds a man driven to cannibalism by
hunger while wandering Mount Etna. He
scavenges
the mountainside looking for any kind of
sustenance. In both cases, humans revert to
animal behavior when they are removed from the
spectrum of social rules and opinions.
- ForeignFilms.com
(1:30) (A) - UR English dubbed with Japanese subtitles, letterboxed
WHO KILLED PASOLINI? (1995)
Italian docudrama speculating on the murder of the controversial homosexual Italian director
A provocative feature film which explores
the
mysterious circumstances surrounding the murder of
film director Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975.
Pasolini's life was one of almost constant controversy.
His contentious views on religion, politics
and culture aroused the full spectrum of emotions in
Italian society. His gritty, visceral work
was simultaneously hailed as brilliant and condemned for its
generous use of sex, violence and
anti-establishment
"blasphemy." Everything about him aroused
scandal--even his death. The 17-year-old youth
who bludgeoned him to death, then ran him over
with the director's own Alfa Romeo, claimed
Pasolini had made homosexual advances toward him.
But whether this was the true motive was never
satisfactorily answered. Pasolini's vociferous opposition
to the ruling class may well have played a
part--but so could countless other sensational declarations
he made, against industry, the banks, the
Mafia, the media... every branch of Italian society.
- Hollywood.com

(1:45) (B) - UR Italian with English subtitles, letterboxed


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