Monday, December 31, 2012

Pier Paolo Pasolini

 The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Arabian Nights

 The Decameron

 Teorema

Before the year ends I want to acknowledge the invaluable complete retrospective of the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini at MoMA, which ends on Saturday, January 5. Besides the opportunity to see many of his films again in beautiful new prints, each film has been preceded by short archival interview material by Pasolini himself relating to that screening. Although I have seen all of the features previously, I had never seen 3 of the 4 location documentaries which were shown yesterday. The 12-minute The Walls of Sana'a, filmed in Yemen at the same time that Pasolini was making his penultimate film Arabian Nights, was especially beautiful and poetic.