A love letter from one provocauteur to another, written in dried blood and tired philosophy. Dafoe is assured as the controversial director, both in his tentative physicality and his soaring creative ambition.

Ferrara offers an elegiac style of quiet shadows and dark passions, and for once his explicit content feels appropriate rather than obstinate.

Sadly, the script is little more than a mood piece that captures Pasolini’s tragic final day. Diversions into recreating his unfinished screenplay Porno-Teo-Kolossal are an interesting curio but they aren’t enough to bring the legend to life.

More of an exercise in character acting than a cohesive piece of drama. Dafoe and Ferrara offer hints of brilliance but their regurgitation of Pasolini’s philosophy will only be of interest to hardcore fans.

RATING: 3/5

 INFORMATION

CAST: Willem Dafoe, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ninetto Davoli, Adriana Asti

DIRECTOR: Abel Ferrara

WRITER: Maurizio Braucci (based on an idea by Abel Ferrara and Nicola Tranquillino)

SYNOPSIS: A kaleidoscopic look at the last day of Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975.