Spell Dolce Mattatoio (Tribute to Paola Montenero) Alberto Cavallone

Sequences taken from "Spell Dolce Mattatoio" aka "L'Uomo, la Donna e la Bestia". Editing made by me.
Italian Language.
My tribute to the stunning italian actress Paola Montenero who acts here in the main role of the movie.
Directed by Alberto Cavallone.
Cast: Paola Montenero, Martial Boschero, Monica Zanchi, Macha Magall, Jane Avril.
1977
Italy

The film begins in black and white. A man is watching a gravestone. On the gravestone there's a photo - it's his own photo. We see some images in black and white. An image of a woman. B&w turns into colors. The woman moves.

The man who was staring at the gravestone is a communist in crisis. He doesn't know anymore if his ideology has any use or reality at all. What is truth? But he still hangs on to his icons: photos of Lenin, the hammer & sickle etc.. His wife is a mentally disturbed woman that can be sometimes very aggressive.

We are in a small town in Italy. People are preparing themselves for the feast for the town's patron saint. The film feels natural: Little boys running around selling drawings of saints. The priest organizing the procession. Boys meeting girls at the town's main square etc... You don't feel that you're watching a film. I had almost the feeling of being there.

There are many other characters in the film:

There's a butcher that gets his sexual kicks with the big chunks of meat hanging in the freezer.

There's a rude countryman, good at dealing with cows and in killing chickens, but very unsubtle when it comes to dealing with his own wife, and she's already fed up with being treated as a domestic slave and sexual object.

There's the girl who had an affair with her own father and now... well, she's carrying his baby.

There's the town's whore. She's young and pretty and seems in fact much more a hippie than a hooker.

There's the priest who organizes processions and stages rituals. He seems happy enough in his life.

And finally there's a mysterious drifter. He is the harbinger of change.

"L'uomo, la donna e la bestia" resembles an acid trip. The butcher's dreams, those of the countryman's wife and others... and reality mix, and the feast, the fun park, the people dancing to a band, the multicolored lights blinking, pulsating, the strange soundtrack... make for an hallucinating audiovisual trip.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• spell dolce mattatoio
• spell
• dolce
• mattatoio
• l'uomo la donna la bestia
• alberto cavallone
• paola montenero
• martial boschero
• macha magall
• monica zanchi
• jane avril
• maria pia luzi
• soundtrack
• theme
• italy
• exploitation
• avantgarde
• pasolini
• bunuel
• communism
• comunismo
• mentally disturbed
• pazzia
• aggressive
• saint
• santo
• butcher
• macellaio
• slave
• whore
• prostituta
• priest
• prete
• procession
• drifter
• vagabondo
• hallucination
• allucinazione