Pier Paolo Pasolini’s & Giovannino Guareschi’s “La Rabbia““ (1963)

La Rabbia (The Anger) is an archival documentary film directed in the first half by Pier Paolo Pasolini and in the second half by Giovannino Guareschi, the first from a radical left perspective, the second from a conservative monarchist angle. An attempt to answer the existential question, “Why are our lives characterized by discontent, anguish, and fear?“ Part I, by Pasolini, is a denunciation of the offenses of Western culture, particularly those against colonized Africa. It is at the same time a chronicle of the liberation and independence of the former African colonies, portraying these peoples as the new protagonists of the world stage, holding up Marxism as their “salvation”, and suggesting that their “innocent ferocity” will be the new religion of the era. Guareschi’s part, by contrast, constitutes a defense of Western civilization and a word of hope, couched in traditional Christian terms, for man’s future.