During the years immediately preceding the spellbinding horrors of his swansong "Salo", Pasolini created a trilogy of bawdy romps based on "The Decameron", "The Canterbury Tales" and "The Arabian Nights". They are conceived very much in the same vein as the earlier "Gospel According to Saint Matthew" with the accent on realism rather than stylisation. Thus the ancient buildings and open landscapes often teem with crowds of people. The subject matter is of course very different, but what fun it all is! "The Decameron" is, to my mind, the most original of the three. It seems almost to be without form. Stories start and end abruptly, as if, having milked a tale of its naughtiness, the director is anxious to get on with another without the delay of a preamble. What I like most about the film is the sheer happiness of so many of the characters. Although some suffer embarrassing discomfort (the buffoon who falls up to his neck into a privy), most have a highly enjoyable old time; the young convent gardener for instance who, feigning deaf and dumbness, has it off with a procession of nuns, who in turn register the joy of having witnessed "a miracle" when he eventually decides to speak. But my favourites are the young couple who have a naked lovers' tryst on a rooftop. The girl tells her parents that she is going there to listen to the song of the nightingale. In a film where everyone is mainly happy even the parents register pleasure that their daughter has "caught her nightingale" when they discover the young couple nakedly fondling each other after what one can only imagine to have been the night of all nights of lovemaking from the blissful start we have witnessed.
Was ever a young couple more perfectly endowed! In a film where many, including some of the young, are gap-toothed, their smiles reveal perfect sets. I presume they are real!
