Drama
Italian (I pugni in tasca)
1965 · Directed by Marco Bellocchio · 110 min
In a decaying villa in the Italian provinces, a blind mother and her four grown children live in an uneasy, claustrophobic household. One son, epileptic and volatile, begins to see himself as the only person who can change things. A raw, dark-humoured debut about family as a trap.
Why it matters in cinema history
A key film of the new Italian cinema of the mid-1960s, it broke from both neorealism and the polished art film, and brought a politically charged, anti-bourgeois anger into Italian film.
Watch with intention
Watch the house as a closed world, and ask how every character is shaped, limited or made absurd by the others in it.
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