Bertolucci’s first film, based on a story by Pasolini, is nevertheless “a stylistic effort to differentiate” from the master. “In this it is Pasolinian: in that it is precisely his opposite”. These words of the twenty-one-year-old director sum up the meaning of a complex narrative that gravitates around the Parco Paolino and includes, among other characters from an archaic and sub-proletarian Rome, a prostitute killed on the banks of the Tiber, a petty thief, an exploiter, a man from Friuli, a Calabrian soldier, two street kids and a homosexual who plays the role of destiny. The structure is enigmatic and almost detective-like: the investigation is to identify the murderer of the socialite and, by reconstructing the facts of the murder, the characters of the witnesses are revealed instead. The action moves back and forth in time, collecting fragments of reality, pieces of popular music (Come nasce un amore performed by Nico Fidenco, Addio, addio sung by Claudio Villa) and snapshots of a city that for Bertolucci is still an arcane place. The author mixes original ideas and tributes. The glory and curse of midday light is a Pasolinian topos that governs, for example, the scenes in which the Calabrian soldier (Allen Midgette) seems to get lost in his dream, or hallucination, of Rome, immersed in an absolute suspension, blocked by a distilled, very lucid awareness of solitude. Getting lost, in fact, since everyone is alone and lost in their own objectified labyrinth: this is the personal note introduced into the text by the young director, a note that recurs in the following works where it expands, acquiring a notable metaphorical vigor.
