Mamma Roma (1962)

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1. 

   Camille Deadpan

   This is Pasolini's hommage to the neo-realist classics. Anna Magnani gives, as always, a wonderful and powerful performance. 10 years 8 months ago
2. 

   Siskoid

   Mamma Roma is an early Pasolini film, and so looks and feels like he's part of the neo-realist movement of his day, until the ending where his penchant for Christian iconography is used to make the film more enigmatic. The title character is an emancipated prostitute who rescues her teenage son off the streets and sets off for a new life. Anna Magnani is earthy, raunchy and raw in the role - it's a great performance - at the mercy of her old pimp who keeps trying to drag her back into the life. Almost as much time is given to her listless, disaffected son, and neither seems able to disconnect from their former lives (due the naturalistic properties of neo-realism). Pasolini shines when he get symbolic, so I greatly admire the way Roma sleeping with different men is suggested by long walks with men who relay each other in conversation. And then there's the transformation of the son into a Christ figure, evoking the Passion and his disappearance from his tomb, and in turn, Mary Magdalen. As in the later Teorema, Pasolini gives us the Divine in the commonplace. Obviously, Roma isn't named accidentally, but I wonder whether "Rome the whore" is meant to be the Roman Empire as much as the fascist and post-fascist Italy of the film. In the end, it's a Christian image that might save Mamma Roma's soul, but that's ambiguous at best. Pasolini brings the Church down in the muck with his characters and it may be shown to have little power to save. 4 years 4 months ago
3. 

   MilenaFlaherty

   The final close-up of Anna Magnani is heartbreaking. 5 years 4 months ago

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