Pasolini

Tipped to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival...ooops. It bombed.

There's a reason as to why few have ever heard of or even seen Ferrara's Pasolini...it's a mess.

Willem Dafoe is perfect for the part - both visually and physically...but, that voice - not even an attempt to disguise his American drawl was made.

The languages are all over the place...one minute it's French, then Italian...and, American!

Perhaps, a nod to Pasolini himself, would have been a better way to go - the Italian director [badly] dubbed most of his films. Ferrara would have been more prudent if he had gone the same way...at least consistency would not have been an issue.

Now, Pasolini's inglorious death as been the subject of much conjecture...conspiracy theories have bounced all over the place...rather than being beaten to death by a bunch of young thugs, it has been posited that the Mafia were involved...

It doesn't matter where the 'order' came from...the fact of the matter is that he was killed by the aforementioned thugs...with one being caught - Pino Pelosi - who served a relatively short 10 year sentence for murder...

20 years after his release...Pelosi started to talk, implicating the Mafia...and, it is here that the film should have started...because, this is the story! A more gifted writer would have spotted this opportunity immediately. Flashbacks, revelations and controversial fuel...sparks, fire, inferno...alas, no!

Really, there is no story to the last 24 hours of Pasolini's life - quite frankly - it's dull...which makes the film...dull.

However, to increase the film's running time, Ferrara manages to inject a little too much of his own ego...by imagining (and directing) Pasolini's final, unfinished work...this 'treat' is most definitely not for the Pasolini aficionados. These scenes veer towards the monstrous rather than the visionary.

What Pasolini needed was a writer...not a want-to-be, inferior admirer of his work.

A mesmeric disappointment.

Trailer...