Review by HALfie
Submitted by HALfie on
“Mamma Roma” is a mix of formal audacity, unexpected candour and heart-breaking compassion, the result is a work of disarming beauty.
Anna Magnani is the only professional actress, but her charismatic and incisive acting perfectly balances the lack of professional actors.
Pasolini uses Christian symbolism as a contrast with the degradation of life on the street, accompaning scenes with Vivaldi’s pieces and recalling Mantegna’s painting.
Mamma Roma is a prostitute and a saint at same time: she sacrifices totally and unconditionally herself to save her son, but lastly she failed; in some scenes she clearly reminds us of the figure of Mary praying for the Jesus Christ’s death. This sense of sacred and profane made a deep scandal in a catholic Rome where this movie, so overloaded with symbolism and ideology (marxism), caused political attacks when the film was screened the first time.
Pasolini strongly believed in the destiny of his characters with an intense fatalism that marks almost every action they take.
Just like Jesus before his crucifixion, Ettore appears fated to fall, despite constant care of Mamma Roma or the felonious influence of his friends.
Pasolini’s characters are generally victims of a regim (Salò, 120 days of Sodom) or simply victims of a unfair society or of poverty (Accattone, Mamma Roma)… they never win or show courage to fight, simply succumbing to their fate; they never choose the right thing or the wrong one, they are just resigned as confirmed in the last Magnani ‘s monologue duing her stroll alone in the streets.
According Pasolini’s view, proletarians who aspire to be petit bourgeois never succeed in this and the spectator has to surrender to this defeat.