Witches

Witches  On a sleepless night, in my late childhood I was struck by this bizarre movie, in a late-late hours rerun. It blew my mind, and I still wonder around video rentals looking for a copy, in vain. It was conceived probably as a showcase for Silvia Mangano but it is only natural that with such talented directors the movie is not about her, it is instead about them. The first and last episodes are a charming display of misogyny, being the first the silent vivisection of a woman while in the later, featuring a almost speechless Clint Stewood, a cathartic (or rather hysterical) woman lists verborhagically the common places of women paradoxes. But it is Pasollini’s “Earth seen from the moon” piece that really breaks through, depicting the perfect woman – half blond, half brunet and entirely mute. His is a little fable on women leading men into idiocy, condition incarnated by famous slapstick comedian Totó. The shortest episode, “Senso Civico” is completely superfluous and echoes another superfluous over-excited-Italian-freak-in-the-traffic episode played by Roberto Begnini in Jim Jarmush’s “Night on earth”. Still the best pick if you want to trade insomnia for fun.