Encuesta sobre el amor

Comizi d'amore (1965)

*** (out of 4)

Pasolini travels around Italy throwing a mic into various ranges of people asking frank and honest questions about sexuality. Various topics ranging from homosexuality, prostitutes, divorce, sexual freedom and even asking kids where babies come from. The type of people range from college students to the rich and poor and to women who normally can't speak openly. I'm sure this film was more of a sensation when originally released but I think it holds up quite well today for several reasons. For one, it's interesting to look back over forty-years ago and see how young people at the times thought about sex but also how the older people back then looked back on the moral and religious rules of their youth. The film also holds up well today because things really haven't changed too much whenever you really break down the groups of people like Pasolini did. I'm not sure is there was a point to this documentary as it seems like the director simply wanted to know what the country felt on certain issues. There's a lot of humor to be found in the film but most of this comes from the answers the children give about where babies come from. The most interesting thing, knowing that the director was gay, is him asking people about homosexuality and the answers they give him. Most people reply with disgust and I kept wondering if the director would crack and say something but he never does. I think the film goes on a bit too long but it's an interesting look at sexuality on moral and religious aspects.

In this documentary, Pasolini travels around Italy and interviews random people in public places about their attitudes towards sexuality, marriage, and gender issues. It's fascinating to hear how Italians in the early 1960s felt about these topics, and there are plenty of opinions that seem shocking from a modern perspective. There are people who think that divorce should be illegal (they'd rather have spouses kill each other), parents who find it perfectly normal for 14 year-old boys to lose their virginity with a prostitute, and women who think it's only right that they have less rights and freedoms than men. It's especially interesting to hear the interviewees confess their unabashed disgust towards homosexuals to the secretly gay director.

However, I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have been more interesting to include some interviews that weren't conducted in public places with groups of people standing around. As it stands, the movie gets a bit repetitive after a while and probably would have been more effective with a shorter running time.

Saw this beautifully preserved/restored print, with subtitles, via YouTube. Pasolini, with his reputation for political and every other form of radicalism, seems inhibited here, even in the discussion segments with Alberto Moravia and Cesare Musatti. The man-and-woman (and children, students)-in-the-street-and-on-the-farm interviews seem dated, probably since the interviews were conducted on the cusp of major changes in marital and family laws, policies, sexual attitudes in Italy and elsewhere. While no groundbreaking documentary, it's still a fascinating document of the time and place. A more daring and cinematically imaginative treatment of similar themes is found in, of course, "I am Curious (Yellow)"(1967) and "I am Curious(Blue)"(1968), directed by Vilgot Sjoman (a former UCLA film student). In those days there were things you could do in Sweden, albeit with censorship problems, that were simply impossible in Italy, period.

Amid some unsurprising considerations from major italian popular figures of the time, Pasolini publicly asks questions related to sex, ethics, sociology and politics to those bold and naive enough to attempt an answer. The value of such an endevour - wether it is hundreds or hundreds of thounsands of interviews - is (admittedly by the author) debatable at best except for some - nowadays obvious - sociological observations.

Fortunately Pasolini closes (and saves) the film with a greatly poetic final 3 minutes section that feels like a wrap up of the "results" of his inquiry:

"Do men care about anything but living life? A couple getting married. They don't know anything about their love. Life is merciless the most when it is happy and innocent. The knowledge of what's good or evil lies ahead of this forgetfulness of those busy living. And those knowing don't talk in front of such a grace unwilling to learn. But this silence is criminal."

IMHO the movie is in this aphorism. While never boring the interviews are not really interesting (let alone sociologically relevant) either. The documentary was released rated for 18yo: a side note that again summarizes the point we can make today out of it.

Pasolini had some topics of interest, and in this documentary he enquires the italian populace about some of them!

The movie follow some kind of structure, but the overall concept is Pasolini interviewing groups of people in several different places. I find some of the question he does a little vague but for at the time being were quite outrageous!

There's the general depiction of how people thought about in the 60's Italy and although both Pasolini and the crowd had some outdated use of language for today standards, there are several interesting points of view for further analysis. Even Pasolini had to regulate some of the answers here with an amusing "autocensura"!

I'm not very fond of documentaries, it drags on a bit after a while , but I found myself engaged at moments.