Review for The Grim Reaper (La Commare Secca)

It's almost indecent to imagine, as a middle-aged man, that a 21 year old was capable of realising this brilliant film. Bertolucci was just old enough to buy alcohol in Texas when he started work on this intriguing and artfully produced movie. Maybe that's why his portrayal of adolescent youth is so universally accurate, and the adults in the film are generally complex, mean and not to be trusted. Or am I reading too much into it? It was penned by Passolini after all, and not the young Bertolucci. Whatever the case, it's truly remarkable that such a film was funded and made in the first place, and equally astounding that such responsibility should be bequeathed on one so young.


The film appears to resemble Passolini's kitchen-sink melodramas to a large degree, created out of a blend of five tales of normality gone wrong, casting suspicion on each who just happened to have been present in a park during the brutal murder of a prostitute near the Tiber river in Rome.

As the Police question the suspects we get varying accounts of events. Most are excuses to replay the relatively mundane - but that's generally what life is like isn't it?


So who are the suspects? Canticchia, is a no good bag-snatching thief who claims to have been merely taking a short cut through the park. Bostelli is much more suspect. A handsome ladies man who sponges off the ladies he woos, is hiding in the bushes - but why? Then there's Teodoro, a cheery soldier out for a good time who has fallen asleep in the park.


Then two adolescents who are decidedly gooey over two girls they meet in the park who decide they need money and follow up the advances of a suspect middle-aged man who they intend to mug. Lastly there's the unnamed man who appears to run away with something concealed under his coat.


The police interrogation induces one lie after another, though we, the audience, get the real view. Bostelli, for example, may be a cool ladies' man but he is actually scared witless of a nife-touting female loan shark.




The timeline jerks forwards and backwards to such a degree that it almost comes across like a Burroughsian cut-up that somehow holds together if you concentrate hard enough. It's not an easy film to watch.


The twist at the end end is neither shocking nor predictable but somehow ties in with the residing bleakness of the piece. This isn't a romantic view of Rome but rather a bleak one.


Picture quality is very good, doing justice to the imaginative and richly framed cinematography. However, the English subtitling was positively sloppy, with several typing errors and spelling mistakes. Audio is fine throughout.


Though there were no extras on the disc, this will be a welcome release for Bertolucci fans and admirers of neo-realist Italian cinema. Intriguing.