I have always had ambivalent feelings towards Pasolini. On the one hand, I like twisted plots, thrill, unpredictable moments, versatile characters and the like, but he is too dallying, has many references to "old" issues and depicts awkward things artificially created, i.e. not based on true events or so. Mamma Roma has its moments, but, in general, it is not catchy, the past within is too schematic, and all male performances are mediocre; black-and-white did not let enjoying of landscapes and town milieu in full either. True, Anna Magnani as the leading actress is good, her voice and facial expressions included, but all in all, the film was just a sophisticated cinematography and a reasoning story about a former prostitute's challenges and opportunities.

The echoes of Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria" and "La Dolce Vita" are obvious and Pasolini was a screenwriter on both of those projects. That said, this stands on its own as a deeply felt look at one part of Italian society, circa 1962. Watching it, I understood a mother's love for her son and the roots of present-day Italian society better than I had done. That's not a bad achievement! It's also a tremendously attractive time capsule, a window into that moment in time and place. As an aside, I wonder how this film would have been perceived had Pasolini not made "Salo". I think it might have been taken rather more seriously. Watch and make up your own minds.

Mamma Roma is the first film I've seen from controversial Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini and it will probably be the last for quite a while. This film is very much in the Italian Neo-Realist tradition, something I found odd since most films from the movement were made several years earlier. As I watched the film, which was filled with unsympathetic low-life characters, I kept wondering what the point of it was or rather why Pasolini made it. I don't think that every film should necessarily be a work of art or a work of entertainment; in fact I think there are all sorts of different reasons a film can exist. I just couldn't think of a good one for this film.I can most definitely say that I didn't find this film to be at all entertaining or artistic. Actually, the only reason for this film I can think of is as a venue for Pasolini to spread his political message; his contempt for the bourgeois is quite obvious here. The film seems to be all about how society works against the lower class to keep them down. I don't necessarily object to a film having a political message but it needs something more to justify its existence. The only other thing I could find was some very cynical and depressing melodrama. There is also heavy handed religious imagery and parallelism between Mamma Roma's son and Christ but I fail to see how it adds anything to the film. For that matter, some of the content of the film itself seems to be working against what I took to be its political message.On a technical level, I was mostly unimpressed with Mamma Roma. The acting ranged from poor to above average and a lot of the cinematography looked very nice. At the same time, however, the editing was often quite abrupt and the film often felt disjointed as crucial plot points were mentioned instead of shown while less important events often were covered more thoroughly. Finally, I feel that I have to mention the distracting score which alternated between overbearing and not appropriate to the action.

"Mamma Roma"(1962) the second film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, is the brutally realistic in its depiction of life in the slums of Rome yet lyrical ode to mother's love. Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani), a middle-aged prostitute is ready to quit her profession and to start a new life with her teenage son who had spent his childhood in the country and does not know her well. She wants a better life for herself and a meaningful future for her son, and there is not much her Mamma Roma would not do for her son. Things don't go as planned, though...Anna Magnani was renowned for her earthy, passionate, "woman-of-the-soil" roles and she is one of the main reasons to see the film. She is Rome's flesh and soul, its spirit and symbol, its loud laugh and bitter tears.