Andreuccio arrives in Naples, where he is cheated twice by two robbers trying to escape with jewels. Masetto da Lamporecchio is approached by nuns who wish to have intimate relations with him. You can Watch this movie on TeraBox App for free and also can download it in HD format. Here’s Full Movie.
Comprehensive Review of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s *The Decameron* (1971)
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1971 film, *The Decameron* (original title: *Il Decameron*), is the first installment in his “Trilogy of Life,” a cinematic exploration of medieval and ancient texts that includes *The Canterbury Tales* and *Arabian Nights*. A loose adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th-century collection of stories, the film is a vibrant, bawdy, and visually rich tapestry of medieval life.
Review
Pasolini’s *The Decameron* is less a direct adaptation of Boccaccio’s book and more a re-imagining of its spirit. He largely abandons the original’s framing device—a group of aristocrats telling stories to escape the plague—and instead presents a series of interconnected, and sometimes explicit, vignettes. The film is a departure from Pasolini’s earlier, more stark neorealist works, embracing a more playful, burlesque, and earthy tone.
A key element of Pasolini’s approach is his use of non-professional actors and his decision to shoot entirely on location in Southern Italy. This gives the film a raw, authentic feel, with faces that seem to have stepped right out of a Bruegel painting. The characters are not romanticized; they are dirty, full of life, and driven by base human desires—chiefly, sex and money. This demystification of the Middle Ages is a conscious choice by Pasolini to critique what he saw as the bourgeois hypocrisy and capitalist exploitation of his own era. The film is a celebration of a pre-capitalist, peasant world where desires were simple and unabashed.
While the film is famous for its explicit and often comical sexual content, it is more than just titillation. The stories, while focusing on human lust, are also tales of wit, trickery, and social satire. Pasolini, who also appears in the film as a painter, a pupil of Giotto, uses this character to link the stories together, presenting the film itself as a kind of cinematic fresco—a visual mural of human folly and vitality.
Critics have lauded the film’s visual style, with its distinctive color palette and striking faces. However, some have found the episodic nature and lack of a cohesive narrative to be uneven, with certain stories being more compelling than others. Despite this, *The Decameron* remains a vital work in Pasolini’s filmography, offering a unique and provocative vision of a bygone era that speaks to the director’s enduring political and philosophical concerns.
Plot Summary
Pasolini’s *The Decameron* is an anthology film that presents a selection of Boccaccio’s tales. Instead of a single, continuous narrative, the film features several loosely connected stories, often with a recurring character or theme. The director himself appears in the film as the “pupil of Giotto,” a painter who travels to Naples to create a fresco, and his observations of the people around him appear to inspire the stories that unfold.
Some of the key tales adapted in the film include:
- Andreuccio of Perugia: A naive young man is swindled twice in Naples while trying to buy horses. After falling into a pit of human waste and being tricked by thieves, he eventually outwits them and escapes with a valuable ring, getting the better of the cunning locals.
- Masetto of Lamporecchio: A young man, Masetto, pretends to be deaf and mute to gain employment as a gardener in a convent. The nuns, believing him to be harmless, decide to use him to satisfy their sexual needs. The constant activity becomes too much for Masetto, and he eventually speaks, claiming it as a “miracle” and earning him the reputation of a holy man, while ensuring his continued service to the nuns.
- Peronella: A woman, Peronella, is having an affair with a lover when her husband returns home unexpectedly. She quickly hides her lover inside a large clay pot. When her husband announces he’s selling the pot, she pretends she has already found a buyer and demands her husband clean the inside of it while her lover is still in it.
- Ser Ciappelletto: The film opens with the story of Ciappelletto, a notoriously wicked and immoral man. On his deathbed, he confesses his sins to a gullible monk, but his “confession” is a series of outrageous lies that portray him as a pious and saintly man. After his death, the monk declares him a saint, and he is revered by the townspeople.
The film’s various episodes are linked by the ongoing work of the painter, a stand-in for Pasolini himself, who at the end of the film contemplates his finished work and the “dream” he has tried to create.
Cast and Team
Cast
- Franco Citti as Ser Ciappelletto
- Ninetto Davoli as Andreuccio of Perugia
- Jovan Jovanović as Rustico
- Vincenzo Amato as Masetto of Lamporecchio
- Angela Luce as Peronella
- Pier Paolo Pasolini as the Pupil of Giotto
- Silvana Mangano as The Madonna (uncredited)
Team
- Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Written by: Pier Paolo Pasolini (based on the work of Giovanni Boccaccio)
- Produced by: Alberto Grimaldi
- Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli
- Music: Ennio Morricone
- Editing: Nino Baragli, Tatiana Casini Morigi
Trailer:
