THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1966)
By grunes
The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films from Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s rambunctious comedy The Hawks and the Sparrows is an ideological fable.
An old man and his son are walking down a vacant road. They pass through a slum punctuated by billboards, each identifying an individual but also a widespread problem: an unemployed man; a child who ran away. Down the road they meet a black crow, a self-described Leftist intellectual. The crow says his parents are Conscience and Doubt. The crow accompanies the pair.
Suddenly the men are transported to the thirteenth century, where they are friars. St. Francis charges them with preaching God’s love to hawks and sparrows and converting the birds to Christianity. This they do amidst hilarious chirping; the hawks convert to consolidate their power, while the sparrows convert out of desperation. When the sparrows explain they need wheat and millet, they are told to fast! But the friars burst into tears when a hawk assaults and kills a sparrow. God’s love, apparently, is insufficient to counter class warfare. The two report back to St. Francis, who chides the friars for misunderstanding history and foretells the Coming of the Messiah: Karl Marx!
Back in the present, the father utilizes an outhouse for a bowel movement. He and his son are told to take their shit with them. They refuse; they are shot at. Ownership and property lead to strife and battles.
Now the two are a landlord and his goon. They invade the shack of an impoverished couple and threaten to confiscate their home for nonpayment of rent. For four days running, the woman has convinced her children to stay in bed because she has nothing to feed them. She is cooking a bird’s nest for her spouse. So recently victims themselves, our pair are unmoved.
Food for thought.
This entry was posted on November 2, 2007 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1966)
By grunesThe following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films from Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s rambunctious comedy The Hawks and the Sparrows is an ideological fable.
An old man and his son are walking down a vacant road. They pass through a slum punctuated by billboards, each identifying an individual but also a widespread problem: an unemployed man; a child who ran away. Down the road they meet a black crow, a self-described Leftist intellectual. The crow says his parents are Conscience and Doubt. The crow accompanies the pair.
Suddenly the men are transported to the thirteenth century, where they are friars. St. Francis charges them with preaching God’s love to hawks and sparrows and converting the birds to Christianity. This they do amidst hilarious chirping; the hawks convert to consolidate their power, while the sparrows convert out of desperation. When the sparrows explain they need wheat and millet, they are told to fast! But the friars burst into tears when a hawk assaults and kills a sparrow. God’s love, apparently, is insufficient to counter class warfare. The two report back to St. Francis, who chides the friars for misunderstanding history and foretells the Coming of the Messiah: Karl Marx!
Back in the present, the father utilizes an outhouse for a bowel movement. He and his son are told to take their shit with them. They refuse; they are shot at. Ownership and property lead to strife and battles.
Now the two are a landlord and his goon. They invade the shack of an impoverished couple and threaten to confiscate their home for nonpayment of rent. For four days running, the woman has convinced her children to stay in bed because she has nothing to feed them. She is cooking a bird’s nest for her spouse. So recently victims themselves, our pair are unmoved.
Food for thought.
Tags: Pasolini
This entry was posted on November 2, 2007 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.