Best movie ever!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

In the spirit of Rashomon, we have the idea of multiple versions of a tragedy, the beating death of a prostitute in Rome. Bertolucci fell into this directing opportunity and makes the most of it. While it has rough edges, it is an engaging tale. Those present at or near the murder scene are brought in for questioning. There are three young, aimless men who are petty thieves. There is a man who is almost expressionless. There is a strange looking soldier who seems utterly lost and without social skills. There is a man with a history who can be heard because he wears clogs and clicks on the cobblestones. There are others, but each offers his account of an evening in a park near where the murder was committed. Everything is subtle and visual and we can see the beginnings of some pretty impressive camera-eye technique. There are wonderful shots like the opening where the wind blows papers in the air off a bridge. It is seen from below and at first it looks like birds flying. The acting is quite good. A down side would be a lack of clues. All we have are eye-witness accounts which could contain lies. Nevertheless, this is a sound beginning.

Bernardo Bertolucci's debut film "The Grim Reaper" is based on a story by one of Italian cinema's greatest personalities-Pier Paolo Pasolini. However, his influence might be felt only in some scenes of the film including a detailed description of Roman lowlifes. In remaining parts of the film, one gets to see a good creation of atmosphere especially of nocturnal times which are crucial for steering the story forward. Although this film can be summarized as the tale of a theft which backfired, Bertolucci makes good use of his film's characters to reveal that it is through lies that one gets to ascertain the truth. The apparent comparisons with Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece "Rashomon" are unjustified as Bernardo Bertolucci's film appears more as a piece of 'investigative journalism' with a diligent cop determined to break the criminals through his incessant questioning. As a film which can be considered as a brutally honest example of incredible cruelty from a woman character, The Grim Reaper truthfully represents the mood of Rome in 1960s, a period where dance, love, music and sex flourished in abundance.

The mysterious murder of a prostitute happened near a park. The police are looking out for the truth and the murderer by the interrogation of the persons who were in the park that night."La Commare secca" is the first feature film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and definitely marks the beginning of a wonderful career. It is the third film that I have seen of Bertolucci and for me is just another little gem of the Italian Cinema. The film begins with the classic interrogations of the authorities and we see how the things really happened and how different are the facts from the words that the suspects are giving to the authorities. The first three suspects are three very strange men and their routine of the day of the murder are strangely funny, basically because they are lying in their confessions. The first one said that he was looking out for a job but he actually was bothering and trying to steal the couples of lovers in the park. The second said that he was spending a lovely day with his girlfriend but he was really having many problems with the mother of the woman who support him and finally having problems with that woman too. The third is the funnier because he spend all the day flirting with all the women that he saw instead of going to the cinema as he confess. So the story of the film looks like it has the murder mystery just as a pretext to show "a day in the life" of common people because is true that the first three suspects were in that park but is also true that they weren't involve in the murder and is until the fourth person interrogated that we can relate something with the dead prostitute. The last suspects are like the main characters in all the film; they are a couple of teenage boys looking out for the love of a couple of girls. I said that they are the main characters because we can see more details of their day and the reason of their own crime and why only one is interrogated. Finally the mystery of the dead prostitute is solve but that wasn't the main point of the film because it was just a perfect pretext to can show the same day in different minds.Well I really like this film that is just a great beginning of Bertolucci . It's easy to watch and easy to enjoy with a short story (88 minutes) so this is the most accessible film of Bertolucci that I have seen. The cast is great with actors and actress who only appear in this film, that marks the beginning but also the end of their acting career. The music is, like in the other two films that I have seen of BB, really important for the meaning of some sequences and I really like that. Here the last dance scene is memorable and was where the police arrest the murderer.Conclusion: "La Commare secca" is a simple but great film. The fact that Pier Paolo Pasolini write the story is another pretext to check this Italian gem that is really important not only for the Italian Cinema history but for the entire Cinema history.

Bernardo Bertolucci's "La Commare secca", his directorial film debut, is wonderfully preserved in the Criterion DVD we had the occasion of watching recently. It shows a young man with great promise in a film that some contributors to IMDb like to compare with Kurasawa's "Rashomon", which is unfortunate. Bertolucci had been around the movie business as he had been behind the scenes in the Italian cinema serving his apprenticeship with the likes of Pier Paolo Passolini and other great masters. In this film, he got help from Passolini, who contributed to the screen play.The beginning of the film has a Fellinesque look to it, as we are shown Parco Paolo, in Rome, with the flying debris that come to settle at the scene where a young prostitute is lying on the ground. The crisp black and white cinematography of Giovanni Narzisi enhances everything it focuses on with tremendous elegance, showing that Bertolucci knew his business and his camera angles, mostly shown in scenes in the park, are always effective. The musical score by Piero Piccione and Carlo Rustichelli enhances the film, adding another dimension. Bertolucci was well served by Nino Baragli's editing.There are aspects of the film in which he recognize the input of Pier Paolo Passolini, as we see the homosexual who is cruising the park at night. In fact, most of the men in the film are predators, one way or another. The prostitute, who hardly utters a word in the movie until the end, is a symbol for the lost innocence the director and his collaborators sensed at the time the film was produced.This film deserves a view by all fans of the Italian cinema because it marked the arrival on the scene of a revolutionary director whose career spans more than forty years.