Arquivo

On a deserted road, a man (Totó) and his son (Ninetto Davoli) come across a talking raven. At a given moment, the raven changes them into two Franciscan friars, and they find themselves obliged to preach to hawks and sparrows. “I have never made a film as disarming, as frail, and delicate as this one. It does not resemble my previous films, nor is it like any other film. His surrealism has little to do with historical surrealism, but fundamentally with the surrealism of fables”, says Pasolini. Also, according to the director, the film is a parable on the crisis of Marxism (represented by the raven) in Italy in the fifties. “Totó and Ninetto represent innocent Italians who are not involved in the story: that attain primary notions of awareness when they encounter Marxism in the likeness of the raven”, adds the Italian director.