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Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die (Wie de Waarheid Zegt Moet Dood, 1981) Director: Philo Bregstein In 1975, Italian poet and film director (and also painter and theatre director) Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered on a beach in Ostia. Despite outraged demands from his associates and representatives of the intelligentsia, the crime was quickly 'solved' without an investigation and a 17 year-old male prostitute was convicted by his own confession. Six years later, filmmaker Philo Bregstein revisited Pasolini's life in Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die, a documentary from Holland. The documentary makes a strong case that the confessed murderer was the cover of a conspiracy, and condemns the Italian government for allowing the entire affair to be closed in the face of evidence that others were involved in the killing. Rather than limiting Pasolini's life to the horrible details of his demise (he was bludgeoned, tortured and run over by a car), Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die uses photos, film clips and interviews to assemble a full portrait of the enigmatic poet. A half-century of Italian news and magazine coverage painted Pasolini as a homosexual menace to the culture, but his defenders remember him as a brilliant man and one of Italy's most important artists. |
