Pasolini

Yesterday evening the Italian cultural center in Cairo showed a movie by an Italian director, Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini was not only a director, he was a poet, a writer, an artist.
Friuli( http://http://www.pasolini.net/ideologia08.htm) was the place he grew up in and he never forgot about it, even when he moved; when he was killed he was buried there.
The movie I am going to talk about is called "Il Vangelo secondo Matteo", the Gospel according to Matthew. In the movie, Jesus is represented as a stern, brusque, and demanding person, who comes "to bring a sword, not peace", but his heart melts in front of the pure soul of children. He is more human than divine. Pasolini in the movie seems to look for the inner essence of Jesus' teachings: no dialogue has been added to the original text, as if he wanted to give a picture as much as possible close to the original, free from the tinsels of the Church. Dialogues give also a remarkable space to music, Bach and Mozart alternated with African music, when the rythm of the movie requires it. Sometimes it is slow and staid, sometimes it is frenzied, and the camera moves from a face to another, focusing on details.
What I really liked in the movie is the humble attempt of a man to travel back in time and catch the essence of Jesus, the human being and the God and his teachings that grew stronger and stronger through the winds of time.

(picture: http://www.pasolini.net)