Pasolini (2014)

Set in 1975, the film director Pier Paolo Pasolini (Willem Dafoe) has just completed his latest film SALO and is in the process of writing the screenplay for his next film. Directed by Abel Ferrera (MS. 45), the film examines the last days of Pasolini's life shortly before his brutal murder. In the film, Pasolini claims narrative art is dead and as if to echo that statement, Ferrera doesn't give us a conventional biopic but fragments containing Pasolini expounding his political views in interviews, images from the screenplay he is in the process of writing, picking up hustlers etc. It's an unorthodox approach to the biographical genre but done with such austerity that one almost wishes Ken Russell had gotten his hands on it and juiced it up with his often outrageous imagery and sensibility. Dafoe is fine as Pasolini but never quite believable. He's playing an Italian and surrounded with a cast of Italian actors yet he speaks standard English without a trace of an accent. It's nicely shot by Stefano Falivene (BEL AMI). Released in Italy in 2014 but not in the U.S. until 2019. With Adriana Asti, Ninetto Davoli, Ricardo Scamarcio as Ninetto Davoli and Maria De Medeiros (PULP FICTION) as Laura Betti.