Ferrara is openly inviting comparison with Pasolini’s work in this ambitious but messy and flawed piece, where reality bends and stretches and sensation rules.
Pasolini
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France, Belgium, Italy · 2014
1h 24m
Director Abel Ferrara
Starring Willem Dafoe, Giada Colagrande, Riccardo Scamarcio, Maria de Medeiros
Genre Drama, History
Add to Watchlist
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
This biopic brings viewers close to Pasolini during the final hours of his life as he talks with his family and friends, writes, gives a brutally honest interview, and cruises in his gun-metal gray Alfa Romeo. Pasolini’s life and art are constantly refracted and intermingled with the film to the point where they become one.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
It was a given that this meeting of two iconoclastic directors would yield something far more unfettered and instinctive than conventional bio-drama. But the result borders on incoherence, providing few startling insights for aficionados and minimal illumination for the uninitiated.
Biopics ascribe titanic importance to a subject's every gesture, but Ferrara stresses the reality of creation, of its ordinary activities that nonetheless give an artist a sense of fulfillment.
Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini is a frustrating film, despite vast stretches of compelling storytelling.
One feels its subject would have admired the boldness of its conception, if perhaps not its overly slick execution.
Ferrara finds himself imitating rather than innovating.
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
Ferrara has come up with something pretty special here: a subtle, seductive, lamp-lit hymn to one artist’s talents from another in the process of rediscovering his own.
It’s a work of startling maturity from this incorrigible tearaway, a minor-key dream that finally turns towards darkness.
Users who liked this film also liked
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory
(La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 1895
- Director Louis Lumière
- Cast
- Genre Documentary
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Madame Bovary
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 1991
- Director Claude Chabrol
- Cast Isabelle Huppert, Jean-François Balmer, Christophe Malavoy, Jean Yanne, Lucas Belvaux, Christiane Minazzoli
- Genre Romance, Drama
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, YouTube, Kanopy
Shadow of the Vampire
The fictionalized tale of the making of Nosferatu (1922), and the lead actor’s quirky demands.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom, United States, Luxembourg • 2000
- Director E. Elias Merhige
- Cast John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormack, Eddie Izzard
- Genre Drama, Horror
- Available on Amazon Video
The Jewel
(Il gioiellino)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy, France • 2011
- Director Andrea Molaioli
- Cast Toni Servillo, Remo Girone, Sarah Felberbaum, Fausto Maria Sciarappa, Lino Guanciale, Vanessa Compagnucci
- Genre Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy
(Romanzo di una strage)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy, France • 2012
- Director Marco Tullio Giordana
- Cast Valerio Mastandrea, Pierfrancesco Favino, Michela Cescon, Laura Chiatti, Fabrizio Gifuni, Luigi Lo Cascio
- Genre Drama, Crime, Mystery, History
- Available on Kanopy
Balancing Act
(Gli equilibristi)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy, France • 2012
- Director Ivano De Matteo
- Cast Valerio Mastandrea, Barbora Bobuľová, Maurizio Casagrande, Rolando Ravello, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, Grazia Schiavo
- Genre Drama
- Available on myfilmfriend
Viva l'Italia
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy • 2012
- Director Massimiliano Bruno
- Cast Raoul Bova, Alessandro Gassmann, Michele Placido, Ambra Angiolini, Edoardo Leo, Maurizio Mattioli
- Genre Comedy
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Leopardi
(Il giovane favoloso)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy • 2014
- Director Mario Martone
- Cast Elio Germano, Michele Riondino, Massimo Popolizio, Anna Mouglalis, Valerio Binasco, Paolo Graziosi
- Genre Drama, History
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Aquarius
Sometimes staying put is the greatest challenge.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Brazil, France • 2016
- Director Kleber Mendonça Filho
- Cast Sônia Braga, Maeve Jinkings, Irandhir Santos, Humberto Carrão, Fernando Teixeira, Zoraide Coleto
- Genre Drama
- Available on Kino Film Collection, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube, Kanopy
Young Style
(青春派)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- China • 2013
- Director Liu Jie
- Cast
- Genre Comedy, Romance, Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Ricky Gervais: Humanity
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom • 2018
- Director John L. Spencer
- Cast Ricky Gervais
- Genre Comedy
- Available on Netflix, Netflix basic with Ads
The Watchman
(Сторож)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Russia • 2019
- Director Yury Bykov
- Cast Yury Bykov, Vladislav Abashin, Alla Yuganova, Arthur Beschastny, Gela Meskhi, Oleg Zima
- Genre Drama, Thriller
- Available on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Runtime
Tommaso
An unconventional recovery drama focusing on one man’s struggle for stability.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy • 2020
- Director Abel Ferrara
- Cast Willem Dafoe, Cristina Chiriac, Anna Ferrara, Alessandra Scarci, Maricla Amoriello, Luciano Sovena
- Genre Drama
- Available on Metrograph, Kino Film Collection, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, Kanopy
Enemies: Against the Clock
(Ferdinand von Schirach: Feinde – Gegen die Zeit)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Germany • 2021
- Director Nils Willbrandt
- Cast Klaus Maria Brandauer, Bjarne Mädel, Franz Hartwig, Katharina Schlothauer, Alix Heyblom, Ursina Lardi
- Genre Drama, Thriller, TV Movie
- Available on No streaming locations found.