Only three appointments yesterday, two at the same house, where the dear, 80 year-old man has lost his wife recently. He sees her everywhere in the house and it makes him more sad. One of the interested parties is a man who is about my age, and I don’t see many of them. I realize I am flirting with him but I hadn’t meant to; it’s simply so refreshing not to be hit on by 60 year olds that I am in the faintly ridiculous position of spotting a novelty and toying with it. The rest of the day is spent in the office and this is when I confirm that I am ill suited to this work. I’m really in my element, driving about all day, meeting and greeting, chat and politeness, but, this morning, in the office, knowing nothing of what has gone on throughout the week, I flounder. When I get back to the office, it is so quiet that the others have locked up and gone home. The desk I use when one of the other women is not there is really mucky, as is the phone etc. I think about cleaning it up but realize this could be taken as a criticism, which it would be, so I leave it mucky and bugger off myself.
Accatone! (1961) is the first film by director Piers Paulo Pasolini and re-relased as part of a box set of his work. Accatone! features a pitiless, self-serving, manipulative young pimp living in the slums and rubble of Rome, whose lassitude is infectious. Images of his death recur throughout the film and he seems barely living. The exclamation mark in the title may be there to try and wake him up. Pasolini shot the film on the streets, using the people he found there rather than professional actors. The effect is a slow moving realism which casts the viewer as reluctant voyeur; it is impossible to gain any distance from the unrelenting sadism of hollow machismo. Seeing this film fifty years after it was made, the misogyny in this film is deeply disturbing; women are either Madonna, virgin or whore. Accatone says prostitution is ‘a mother’s situation’ which provides the mixed message that it’s selfless and necessary for survival, yet he and his friends view whores as trash; to...
Comments