The Decameron
|
Our Price: $27.76 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $11.99 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Decameron
Movie Review: A muddle.
Summary: 2 Stars
The Decameron (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1971)
Yes, I get that Pasolini was supposed to be transgressive and all that stuff. And yes, I get the whole realism thing. But I don't see (and, in my admittedly limited exposure to Pasolini, have yet to see) why transgression and realism in the name of art are supposed to give one a pass on making a good movie. Fernando Meirelles managed both transgression and realism quite nicely in City of God, and what makes it a great film is that it is those things and a movie from which you can't tear your eyes. The Decameron? I could have stopped it at any time to go have dinner. Or tie myself to a termite mound covered in wood shavings.
Pasolini adapts nine Decameron tales here, and to be fair, the source material isn't exactly deathless. (Perhaps the adaptation of some of the weaker tales-- some of them nothing more than one-liners-- is part of the whole quest-for-realism thing?) But scads of directors and screenwriters have taken mediocre source material and made great film from it, so I can't really give Pasolini a pass on that, either. What is inarguable is Pasolini's eye for composition, and if you're a fan of the visuals more than anything else in a movie, this may work well for you; the movie does work better when considered as a series of still lifes captured on film. But, once again, this has been done many times while still making a coherent (and sometimes brilliant; Julian Schnabel is wonderful at this) movie.
Maybe someday I'll get why Pasolini is supposed to be so great, but today isn't the day. **
[ed. note: after reading another review of this particular edition, it seems that some scenes have been cut out that might have made things a touch clearer; perhaps I'll try and find another edition, then amend this.]
Movie Review: 8, 10, whatever...
Summary: 2 Stars
It is very odd that we can just lose parts of films into the ether. People who have nobley gone out and done their research, seeking out Passollini with a sincere curiosity are being rewarded with a misleading, partial work, presented as the whole. Is this the work of the prudish puritans, insensitive capitalists or a natural disaster? Who knows. What we do know is that the DECAMERON was clearly based on the number ten, not eight. Ten stories, as the original book has ten narrators, each telling ten stories. Passollinni even divided the film up three and seven to relflect the three men and seven women who told the stories in the book. Important? Maybe not.
What is significant is that part of the movie is missing! and Passollini's statement, and of course he was making a statement, is incomplete.
Movie Review: Unnecessarily confusing
Summary: 2 Stars
This movie cuts from one story to another without a break. It is very confusing. I liked the way it gave a taste of what it was like to live in that time period. A lot of the actors had bad teeth. That was very realistic.
Movie Review: This is a bad edition of Pasolini's magnificent film
Summary: 1 Stars
Boccacio's Decameron consisted of ten realistic stories told by travelers during the plague. Pasolini tied them together and reframed them within the theme of art-does-not-imitate-life. This DVD cut out some scenes essential for understanding the film (e.g., dinner with water melons in the first story, The Invitation), and sanitized certain erotic ones (e.g., Mute Gardener). It is also a pity that the stories have been edited back-to-back without breaks or subtitles so that the viewer not familiar with the original is left guessing where one story ends and another begins. But the greatest injustice to Pasolini is in cutting out most of the final scene that ties all the stories together and gives them a meaning. In that scene real-life thieves, pedophiles, grave-robbers, murderers, adulterers, con artists, and blasphemers - the stories' characters - are shown depicted on cathedral frescos as saints, angels, and archangels by the starry-eyed painter. At the very least, the buyer should be warned that this DVD is an abridged version of the original, and that its editors took poetic licence with it.Movie Review: Was Pasolini Really Necessary?
Summary: 1 Stars
Like most of Pasolini's self-indulgent, grotesque, largely pointless, and badly made films, virtually any five minutes of The Decameron is sufficient to induce a raging migraine. But don't have pain killers on hand when you view it. You could easily O.D. before the first half-hour is out.