Accattone/Comizi d'amore (Italian, Blu-ray disc)

Double bill of features from the acclaimed Italian film maker, poet and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. 'Accattone' (1961) is a film about street life and prostitution that employs a near-documentary style and non-professional actors. Franco Citti plays Accattone, a pimp who survives on the money brought in by Maddalena (Silvana Corsini). When he loses the services of Maddalena, Accattone is forced into an existential crisis, begging money and revisiting estranged relations. A change in outlook appears to be on the cards for the pimp - until he meets a beautiful and naive country girl, Stella (Franca Pasut). 'Comizi d-amore' (1964) is a feature-length documentary in which Pasolini sets out to find out about Italian attitudes to sex. He interviews people of numerous ages and backgrounds on their attitude to things as diverse as virginity, homosexuality and prostitution and presents a thesis on Italian sexuality.