chaos-rampant I thought I was going to be confronted with minor Pasolini here. I was wrong. The same caution applies here though for casual viewers. With Pasolini we come to the foot of a cave where a sage is rumored to live, we can either turn back because there's no ornate ceremony, go back to where we can be told riveting stories about heroes wrestling fate; or sit and listen (not all of it may be intelligible), enter and divine vision.It opens with young intellectuals in a lush villa ruminating on their exasperations like out of Godard, from the time when revolutions were felt to be afoot. Oh the cause may be worthy in Pasolini's eyes, most likely is; but he makes it a point to show the modern self secluded from it in idle comfort, obsessed with analyzing himself in the scheme of narratives, dissatisfied, full of unrequited cravings and contradictions.In a separate medieval story we see man as only one more beast of prey alone in the wilderness, reduced to eating a butterfly to stave his insatiable hunger. We see what lurks behind that civilized self that always expects to be pleased, or better, all that had to transpire for endless time in the wilds. It's important here to see both the contrast and the continuity. The cruel nature in man as nature.And then in a breathtaking scene we're sent scurrying through windswept volcanic rock to see the human beast confronting itself in the crossroads, someone else much like him, alone and wary. There are few scenes more primal than this in cinema.Back in the modern portion, the same meeting between rivals takes place now with a lot of coy evasion, irony and duplicity, in a palace instead of the wild, over drinks. We see how human structures in place foster collaboration in the end; but it's a corporate one for profit that puts the beast in fine clothes, changes his face even, but leaves the hunger intact.Pasolini gives us the same barbs about modern life as he has elsewhere, relishing the opportunity, but he's not a sweeping fool; in the medieval portion he makes it a point to show that it's civilized structures, church and army, that go out in the wild to punish wrongdoing, install a semblance of order.We could be talking for days about what he has woven here. Sin that you control and sin that you don't. Law as necessary civilization. Bartering as control over the narrative (pigsty / WWII in the film). Love that you provide for versus the abstract calling from inmost soul.So okay, his camera seems sloppy from afar; he wants it to be you who has the chance encounter in these wilds instead of something bled of its reality on a lavish stage, wants it to be primal, madness the gods whisper to you. You'll see near the end some marvelously elliptic narrative as he conjures visions, no accident of sloppiness there; Pasolini is once more anticipating Malick.And he's aghast at the base nature he sees in him and things, impurity weighs him down; the whole film says, I have these things gnawing inside of me that I'll pay the price for even if I didn't put them there myself. Pasolini at his rawest makes the rocks crack open.The most riveting thing about it is that we have this seer in the wild of soul, who can bring vision back. He is the one who can't stay for love because something more abstract calls his name. He is the one who strays in the pigsty at nights, who has sinned in the wilds, ate the flesh.

hasosch Bsesides his final work "Salo", the "Porcile" is Pier Paolo Pasolini's most abstract, most hermetic and thus most and also most controversially discussed film. In a famous German reference work of film, this movie is interpreted in the following way: both cannibalism and sodomy be "symbols" of Pasolini's homosexuality. I have seldom read something more stupid and primitive. Moreover, in all reference commentaries that I have seen so far, the interpreters seem to be sure that "Pigsty" consists of two independent parts.In one of the two parallel told stories, a cannibal who seems to live in a paleolithic world, is condemned to be mangled by dogs. In the other parallel told story which plays in a German (?) castle, some negotiations of leading fascists are told. Here we see the ultimate predecessor motives of Salo. There is also a son, Julian, bourgeois like his father, who meets Ida, a liberal girl, and it seems that they cannot come together. The water that separates them looks like the border between the Here and the Beyond and not like a swimming pool embedded in a piece of park. Even when they try to walk towards one another, the never succeed in reaching a meeting point on one of the borders. Julian, however, prefers to enjoy his sexual contacts in the pigsty that belongs to the park of the castle, with the pigs that finally eat him up. The two parallel told stories have in common, as Pasolini himself said, that "bourgeoisy eats up his children". This may be true - since the time of evolution between the paleolithic and post-war fascistoid Italy just made the short step from cannibalism to sodomy.

jackroberts2000 Yet again Passolini at its second best. Two stories , one movie and a lack of continuity. If you are in a depressing- poetic mood let yourself be manipulated by this euro flick . I mostly recommend this movie to fans of neorealism. Do not try to read into the stories. They are just twinkles, strange , powerful , disturbing : cannibalism , gratuitous nudity , desolation, hypocrisy, patricide. As with most of Passolini's works , here politics, religion and philosophy meet to throw up nonsense. Do not watch this movie with your date. If you have the stomach for this picture than you should watch : Salo 120 Days of Sodom (1975) by the same director – now that's a movie for you!

zetes With this, I only have one more Pasolini feature to go and I have seen all of them (the missing culprit being Accatone). Porcile does not represent Pasolini at his best. It's far too abstract and obscure. Two stories alternate, one taking place in a quasi-legendary time and one in modern times. The quasi-legendary scenes concern a young cannibal, some rapists and murderers. The modern sequence concerns some former Nazis living in Italy. One of their sons, played by French actor Jean-Pierre Leaud, is sick of the evil, bourgeois lifestyle he leads. At one point, since he lacks any ambition, he throws himself into an intentional coma. I don't get it, especially how the two parts work together. Still, as a Pasolini fan, I have to admit that it is a strikingly made film. I especially liked the scenes set in the past. Pasolini regulars Franco Citti and Ninetto Davoli (the only actor, I believe, who appears in both parts of the film, although I have no clue why) come along for the ride. Pasolini fans should certainly see it, others should avoid. 7/10.