In 1969, fresh from reimagining the Greek myth of Medea, Pier Paolo Pasolini traveled to East Africa in search of his next adaptation. His audacious project: a radical reworking of Aeschylus' Oresteia set in modern-day Africa that would draw parallels between ancient Greece's inchoate democracy and the newly emergent, post-colonial African state. That film was never made, for reasons revealed in this intriguing cinematic journal that follows Pasolini as he scouts for locations, rhapsodizes about the exotic landscape, and doggedly pursues his black Orestes. The director's concept, not surprisingly, is paradoxical. Grounded in antiquated notions of the African continent but set in it's protean contemporary reality, based on ancient tragedy but suffused with a particularly ephemeral brand of Western Marxism, the elements of the proposed film never quite align. Still, he treks on, photographing the beautiful faces and vistas of Uganda and Tanzania in an attempt to convince the viewer (and possibly himself) that his venture will not collapse under the weight of it's inherent fallacies.
For his part, Pasolini comes off as intelligent and loquacious, brimming with a childlike quixotism. Despite the touchy subject matter, he's never offensive, even in a scene when he debates a group of African students studying in Rome who politely, but firmly disagree with his ideas. It's a later scene, however, that best demonstrates why the project ultimately failed. In an experimental aside, Pasolini orchestrates a run through of a dramatic episode in the style of free-jazz opera, a format he briefly considers. A very hip trio led by a shrieking Gato Barbieri on saxophone bash away as two tone-deaf singers comically howl their lines. Separately, (and in the hands of more capable vocalists,) the musical and operatic interpretations might have succeeded, but mashed together they're almost intolerable. "No, no," Cassandra wails, warning Agamemnon of his grave fate if he continues. Pasolini was wise to heed.
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