Comizi D’Amore

Thoughts on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s documentary “Comizi D’Amore”:

In this documentary Pasolini travels around Italy interviewing people on their position on the “sexual problem”. Mainly focusing on questions of sex education, marriage/ divorce, chastity, machismo, sexual abnormalities, and so on. His technique is less of the Kinsey model, that is to say, less scientific and statistical. Pasolini engages with his audience, conversing in such away that the nature and beliefs of the people interviewed are revealed. He is more socially aware of the conflict people have with their own ideas. However, that is not to say that there isn’t an organized agenda.

Pasolini interviews people from different regions of different ages and economic background, the aim being to paint a fuller picture of Italy as it stands for the individual and the whole. The question of completeness than becomes issue. What about the people who were not interviewed, those who remained silent? If it were possibly to interview everyone, could we reach a point of saturation of knowledge enough to educate an entire country? Pasolini recognizes this weakness, the limits of his own project. This I find is more satisfying that Kinsey’s sex surveys. The interview, in all its flaws is aware that it exists in conflict and uncertainty, its not idealistic. It opens the discussion so that each can extend their own beliefs further than was originally possible. Unfortunately it also makes it so a resolution or synthesis may never be reached.

So what is the sex problem in 1960’s Italy, what is the diagnosis? By the end of the documentary I am concerned less and less by these questions. Instead I am more  focused on the looks of the people as they speak, their shyness or conviction. It brings my attention to each individual voice as they formulate their own opinions on sex.