Writer/director Marco Bellocchio’s debut pic is such a complete piece of cinema, a yardstick achievement he never quite followed thru on, let alone topped. A mad & maddening film, often cruelly funny, about a bourgeois family coming apart from the inside out via economic decay, disease and a healthy dose of matricide & fratricide. With an operatic finale that fuses LA TRAVIATA to ELEKTRA with thrilling results. The technical aplomb and outstanding cast are wonders in a first feature, just as they are in Bernardo Bertolucci's far better known contemporaneous debut, BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. Together, they delivered a short, sharp, rebellious shock to what remained of Italian Neo-Realism, to Fellini’s emerging magical realism and even to Antonioni’s existential ennui. And they still do. These films remain tough as nails. Hard to give much credence to recent 'disenfranchised youth' cult pics like DONNIE DARKO when films like FISTS await rediscovery.
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