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Absolutely Fantastic

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I've been a fan of this website since the days when most movies had 2-3 reviews, and those were from people who could discern good from bad. It's been sad to see how things have deteriorated to the point where if a reviewer doesn't enjoy an objectively decent movie it gets a 1-star rating, and fanboys give all sorts of dreck 10 stars. It's to the point where I no longer trust the ratings on this site. With that preamble, or apology, if you will, out of the way I wholeheartedly and without reservation gives this movie 1 star. There are so many interesting, lyrical, involving Italian movies, from Two Women to 8-1/2 to Rome:Open City to The Bicycle Thieves, among many others. And I've seen plenty of self-involved Italian crapola over the years, esp M Antonioni's mostly unwatchable output. But this takes the proverbial cake. It starts with a guy in an industrial setting being read to by a co- worker. In the first five minutes, before the credits even roll, I bet half the audience was already regretting going to the theatre to watch this. Then the guy goes home and cooks dinner for about an hour. It's as though Ferreri was daring viewers to walk out. I never thought I would see a movie that rivals the worst of Canadian Film Board-subsidized garbage, but I was wrong.

This is one for the Accatone set, those pseuds petrified in the Nouvelle Vague who haunt the movie theatre just off Boul' Mich sharing eternal spliffs and wondering why no one does Jump Cuts anymore. Michel Piccoli - alone on screen for over half the running time - does nothing all at once. Piccoli, who once starred in a REAL movie called The Things Of Life, contemplates the things of life on a conveyor belt that has been looped so we get the same things over and over but probably a centimetre away from where they were first second and third time around. For no apparent reason other than to make some sort of left-handed sense of the title, whilst rummaging in a closet he stumbles across a package that when untied turns out to be a gun wrapped in a newspaper that carries an account of John Herbert Dillinger, famously arrested in a movie theatre in Chicago. Piccoli strips the gun, oils and cleans it, reassembles it and shoots his sleeping wife. Why? Why not. It's THAT kind of movie. Having done so he goes for a swim, as you do, climbs on board a private yacht where they are just burying the cook at sea. Spotting a vacancy he puts himself forward for the job, is given a trial, no questions asked and sails away. Arrested development Godard fans will LOVE this one whilst those who like REAL movies will give it a wide berth.

Ferreri is one of the most important filmmakers, of the greatful decade like 60 in italy. Like Fellini or Pasolini, the director turn the movie in a dreamly journey to the fears and fantasies of the audience. The initial trip, when Piccoli drive a car, and the transformation of guns in art objects are very disquieting. An subversive idea. But, the most amazing is the influence of an old newspaper (the title is: Dillinger is dead)in the attitude of the protagonist. Phoenomenon similar to Lynch's inexplicable possessions. The first step for being seduced by Ferreri´s images.

You call this an experimental film...I call this... a trash movie. Sometimes boring, sometimes funny. Michel Piccoli acting like a dumb makes me laugh. You must see this movie. Marco Ferreri wasn't a good director but his clownish act wasn't so bad.