Dillinger Is Dead

A man comes home in the evening. He works at a factory that designs gas masks. His wife is in bed with a headache, asleep. The dinner has gone cold. He goes into the kitchen and starts cooking for himself. In a cupboard he finds a revolver wrapped in an old newspaper; the paper announces the death of Dillinger. He cleans it, oils it, then paints it red and puts white spots on it. Meanwhile the food cooks, the television is on, a maid is in the house and the man watches home movies. The film tells this evening close to real time. Marco Ferreri directs. Michel Piccoli takes the lead; Anita Pallenberg is in the cast. There is almost no dialogue; the narrative proceeds entirely through movement, sound and objects. The matter it builds is boredom and consumption; all the man's actions consist of following recipes, using tools and playing with things. The ending is sudden and unexplained; the narrative makes no preparation and leaves no comment. It belongs to the experimental period of Italian cinema and is spoken of alongside the wave of criticism of the bourgeoisie at the end of the sixties. The setting is a single flat and the camera moves around after him. The cooking sections are shown in detail and their length is deliberately drawn out. Who it is for: viewers who like European art cinema and films without narrative. Who it is not for: nothing happens, there is no dialogue, and the film asks patience of the viewer.