"Porcile" (Pigsty, 1969, 2 stars) is Pier Paolo Pasolini's (1922-1975) most opaque movie and one that rivals "Salo" in disgustingness. It was the last of Pasolini's movies to be released in the US.

In "Porcile" Pasolini juxtaposed a very tedious talkathon between some former Nazis who have become successful businessmen (Alberto Lionello and Ugo Tognazzi) with a very nearly wordless portrayal of a long-haired and desperately hungry man (Pierre Clémenti) on the barren slope of a volcano (Aetna, I think, though possibly Vesuvius) catching and eating a butterfly. You think that's disgusting? Then go no further into the movie or my review. Eventually, the starving man gets bigger game (human beings).

The literal medieval (15th-century?) cannibal is more likeable (maybe in part because he says nothing until the very end of the movie) than the modern metaphorical cannibals (who are very garrulous). Another parallel is that Julian Klotz, the son of one of the rich businessmen (Jean-Pierre Léaud, playing the son of Tognazzi's character who sports a Hitler-style squared-off mustache), after a long declamation as he strolls beside a pool at Versailles, ceases to speak, seemingly having willed himself into a coma. Rather than being driven to cannibalism, he has a penchant for bestiality (pig-sticking) and their are intimations of incest with his sister Ida(Anne Wiazemsky). At least in the American-release this is not shown. Neither is the pigs' ultimate revenge...

Unlike the Nazi war criminals (who speak of pigs), the band of cannibal robbers is brought to trial and condemned to death. Clementi's unnamed character finally speaks, intoning “I slew my father, I’ve eaten the flesh of man, and I quiver with joy” three times as his companions (including Pasolini regular Franco Citti) are staked out to be devoured by feral or semi-feral dogs (or maybe pigs are let loose on them?)

Pasolini boy-toy Ninetto Davoli appears in both the medieval and the modern story as a witness. He tells the industrialists about Julian's end. Once they are certain there are no witnesses or any evidence not inside some porcine digestive system, they are confident that it can be kept secret along with their own nefarious pasts.

Aided by nudity and mysteriousness, the volcano-slope parts are visually interesting, and neither they nor the viewer can hear the pronouncement of their death sentences (it is drowned out by bells), so that the Clementi's defiant thrice-repeated summary of his life and crimes provides the only words heard in that medieval part of the movie. Would that the cartooinish modern villains (and angst-ridden children) were as mute! or not included at all...

The DVD

The movie's dubbing is spectacularly out of synch (all Italian movies are dubbed, even when they don't have French stars) and scratchy besides. I'm not sure if the wobbly picture is entirely a function of being shot with hand-held cameras or exacerbated in the transfer to the Water Bearer-label DVD. The film used for the transfer was scratched, dirty, and otherwise damaged, including shifting colors and some bleaching of images. The subtitles are difficult to read and cannot not be displayed.

The DVD includes a half-hour 1971 television documentary (directed by Carlo Hayman-Chaffey) about Pasolini—with some interview footage (of Pasolini himself; along with his protégés Ninetto Davoli and Franco Citti; and writers Alberto Moravia, Cesare Zavattini, and Sergio Citti; the last also assistant director of a number of Pasolini films) and practically nothing specifically about "Porcile"—that is of greater interest than the movie (IMHO), but, like the movie, the video transferred had faded and otherwise deteriorated since the 1970s . The Pasolini Foundation insisted that the disc not be divided into chapters (so that one cannot skip scenes, only speed them up).



Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age