Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Pier Paolo Pasolini sets out to interview Italians about sex, apparently their least favorite thing to talk about in public: he asks children if they know where babies come from; asks old and young women if they support gender equality; asks both sexes if a woman's virginity still matters, what do they think of homosexuality, if divorce should be legal, or if they support the recent abolition of brothels. He interviews blue-collar workers, intellectuals, college students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and every other kind of people, painting a vivid portrait of a rapidly-industrializing Italy, hanging between modernity and tradition — toward both of which Pasolini shows equal distrust.
Pasolini's documentary is a singular sociological portrait — his method of direct street interviews about sexuality in 1960s Italy, combined with his own wry intellectual commentary, gives the film an unmistakable authorial voice. The novelty is genuine: no other filmmaker of the era conducted this kind of frank, roving inquiry with such poetic and political acuity. Cinematography is functional vérité but occasionally striking in its framing of faces and environments. The 'acting' category applies loosely to the interviewees' authenticity and Pasolini's own on-screen presence, which is compelling. The plot is essentially the accumulated texture of responses rather than a structured argument, effective but loosely organized. The ending, like much of the film, feels deliberately inconclusive — fitting the subject but not especially resonant as a formal close.