The Decameron - 1971

 I will admit to you that I had only seen Salo the 150 Days of Sodom before this as my sole knowledge of Pier Paolo Pasolini.  Now I've seen two!

The Decameron is a erotic early 70's Italian film based on some ancient writings, in this case by Giovanni Boccaccio.  The original Decameron is a collection of 100 stories which people are telling each other, spanning subjects from love and lust to life and death.  The Decameron film collects 10 of these and puts them here, loosely ensembled by theme.

I'm not going to go into plots too much, but basically some are comic and some are sexual, some are plot stories, some are pointless little exploits.  The stories seem to have no real connection besides a lot of them, maybe most, being sexual in nature.  The film is graphic, with male and female nudity, and showing all manner of inappropriate coupling.  It does not do this in a overtly sexual manner though, usually playing the sex as comedic or lighthearted, and having no ill effect usually.

Perhaps this attitude of the film is what would make one call it uniquely European, and moreso uniquely 70's European.  The film faced much censorship and clashed immediately with the sensibility of most, but given that, it made great waves and remains a cult film, especially given the other thematic tones and filmmaking flourishes present.

There is a dreamy quality, one I like in film a lot, to this.  It drifts listlessly, lazily from one story to another, and clumsily cuts things short, overextends others.  It doesn't feel at all scripted, or even like a movie.  It feels like a slice of life, warm and cozy.  It feels like a memory.  The characters are all us, they're all us when we were young, in our late teens, having sex and falling in love, spending lazy summer days drinking wine and frolicking about the rolling green countryside.

Nothing in this film has true consequences, and they're all shown without moral lessons.  These are snapshots, told to us by the person who lived them, likely with a wry smile and a warm wink.  They are told to us when we are kids, wanting to understand what exactly "life" is.  

You may have to be in the right mood to fully appreciate it, and it's a little long because of the looseness, but it truly is beautiful in many ways.  I give it 4 stars.