Pier Paolo Pasolini (Willem Dafoe) is fifty-three, and lives in the rowdy Rome of the 1970s. He has just finished shooting his latest film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, a film that has shocked both critics and audiences. Pasolini is increasingly opposed by the people, critics and politicians, both for his homosexuality, and because he is considered impulsive and scandalous in showing his reality to the public. Pasolini is going to shoot a new film (which was never made), in which he cast Eduardo De Filippo (Ninetto Davoli) and Ninetto Davoli (Riccardo Scamarcio) - with whom he has a special relationship. While Pasolini is working on the film, his mother (Adriana Asti) and his cousin try to dissuade him from the project, because it would be too wild and visionary for the Italian public to accept.
Pasolini continues with his work, missing many interviews with journalists. He begins a relationship with a boy from the suburbs of Rome, Pino Pelosi, and takes him to a restaurant in the seaside village of Ostia. Pasolini wants to be with him in a loving relationship, but the boy becomes angry with him, attacking him and some other companions. Pasolini is later beaten up and then run over with his own car. In the days following, the press says Pasolini's murder was politically motivated by the police and those whom the poet had always loved and immortalised in his works.
According to Ferrara, his plans to make a film about Pasolini have gone far back as the 1990s. Originally, the project was not meant to have been an actual biopic of Pasolini's life. Instead, it was to have starred Zoë Tamerlis Lund as "a female director living the life that Pasolini lived." However, Lund's death prevented this idea.[5]
Reception
On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 78% approval rating, based on 55 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.8/10. The website's consensus reads, "Pasolini may frustrate viewers seeking a straightforward biopic, but director Abel Ferrara's unconventional approach is well-matched by Willem Dafoe's performance."[6] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 71 out of 100, based on 18 critics.[7]
