recommend me some euro action of the 70s!

valerio zurlini.

cºzen, waht do you know about him?

I saw The 120 Days Of Sodom about a year ago in Berlin. Allegedly the first time Pasonlini's anti-fascist rant had been shown uncut in Germany (which I doubt). A lot has changed since 1975, but it's interesting to see what still shocks and what doesn't.

here's two

BEAST WITH A GUN. Mostly for the beautifully unhinged performance of Helmut Berger.

and

CONTRABAND

valerio zurlini, il ritrovato ["the rediscovered"]. lauded by fellini & pasolini and worked with delon, cardinale, karina, trintingnant, morricone but 'disappeared'. thr should be retrospectives coming soon (?? I'm not sure how these come about, do they start with a localised film festival programs and thereon branch out?) (if so, starting with the EIFF then coming to you).

his films span from '54 to '76 so I presume yr only interested in the last two ('72, '76) given the thread title.

'the professor' ('la prima notte di quiete') - alain delon in film abt sexual obsession, as a ruined teacher, unhappily married, psychotic wife, chance encounter with beautiful student &c. 'magnificently photographed, acutely observed and unflinchingly honest in its treatment of male neuroses' zurlini offers up here what he termed 'an ode to the eternal quiet, after the deceits of life.'

'the desert of the tartars' ('il deserto dei tartari') - stunning, brilliant, interminable, beautiful, 'kafkaesque'. a garrison of soldiers await the attack of an enemy they don't know will ever come, stationed as they are in the most unending expanse of desert, gradually they succumb one by one to madness, paranoia and illness. 'the most elegant distillation of zurlini's existential take on human alienation.' an all-star cast! (max von sydow, phillipe noiret, jean-louis trintingnant.)