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Nestled between ACCATONE (1961) and THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST MATTHEW (1964) in Pier Paolo Pasolini filmography is a surprising statement of neo realism. Feeling as much a part of Antonioni or early Fellini, MAMMA ROMA is as much a impassioned review of Roma families as it is a state of the nation in post war Italy. His earlier film ACCATONE, could be argued to have fulfilled this from a male perspective but here we have the female. If not gaze, at least emotional haze. Ex-prostitute, Mamma Roma (played with brash and bold tenderness by Anna Magnani), wants to cast her old life off. After her former lover and pimp Carmine (Franco Citti) has found his new love, she decides to move and start a stall selling vegetables. Along with her is her16-year-old son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo). Ettore has a erratic mind and a wandering eye. He has found girls and gangs to pass his time after finding out that his mother was a prostitute. She had desperately tried to hide it but it got out and now its destroying the family fabric. Then to make matters worse, along comes her ex partner, to get money from her with force.
Pasolini work has broad baggage. You often cant talk of it without coming into direct contact with pretence or intense educators. They broadly are analytical and use their eye for the battles around many film circles. They will speak of him as a Communist. A cinematic revolutionary, a director of panache. They will even mention his cast, with oft recognised faces. They might also speak of his controversial subjects or even his bravery in cinematographic production. For me though, Pasolini body of work, that is when it is at its very best, can be seen as the completion across all his films, of his opinions both thematically and technically of life. From framing, performance, musicality and most tellingly, persona, he was always communicating this.
I had never seen MOMMA ROMA before and can attest that it feels like his most emotionally complex work in terms of drama and direction. It is also his most loose. This is to say it can meander, meaningfully. It can also digress to the broader Italy family as the society. People chat like in a Fellini film. Chew the cud like I VITELLONI but look like Greco Roman models from ageless works of art. The DVD doesnt do the whole film justice to be honest and I look forward to the day when it is restored to HD or more so, 4K. However it is a must for the fan of the great master or the even great Magnani, who turns in a passionate, potent performance as a women on the very edge of her life. Escaping from a trap, set by society. then finding that outside this trap is an ever grander one…
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