Rating: 
Summary: This is not Pasolini's best
Review: Although it is a good movie and definitely worthwhile seeing it, it's not the best of Pasolini. Yes, it is stylish, but the whole impression is rather good than excellent. Of course, it's not for Hollywood gang, so give it a miss if you like mass production. For those who like Pasolini it's definitely an asset.
Rating:
Summary: This is not Pasolini's best
Review: Although it is a good movie and definitely worthwhile seeing it, it's not the best of Pasolini. Yes, it is stylish, but the whole impression is rather good than excellent. Of course, it's not for Hollywood gang, so give it a miss if you like mass production. For those who like Pasolini it's definitely an asset.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Poor Quality from Wellspring
Review: I will not comment on the film as others here have covered it sufficiently. I am concerned with the DVD transfer issued by WaterBearer Video. I purchased both Passolini box sets and was very disappointed with the quality of the video. The transfer of Porcile was the worst.
The source print was so covered with dirt that it often appears to be raining in this beautiful film. The DVD contains artifacts from the end of each film reel. I have never seen anything like this in a DVD release.
But the worst oversight is the fact that two of the film reels are out of order! This film is confusing enough without this problem. Don't waste your money on this.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting mix of themes
Review: If you are looking for a strange film to watch, you cannot go wrong with Porcile, one of Pasolini's most interesting efforts as a film maker. The theme is a twisted look at fascism through two dominant stories - that of a mountain cannibal and his trials - and that of a wealthy beorgois ex-nazi family.
Though this film is a very startling metaphor of humanity and its reasons for downfall (like Salo) it is not the smoothest of Pasolini's films - it certainly lacks the cohesive structure of 'the trilogy of life' while it embraces an equally complicated subtext. Therefor, it is an extremely difficult film to judge or review. I certainly enjoyed watching it - in what was not the best transfer possible, to say the least.
I recommend this one - but I would like to recommend Pasolini's finer works first like 'Oedipus Rex, the 'Decameron', 'Salo, 'Accatone', and of course 'Mamma Roma'.
Rating: 
Summary: Pasolini at his finest.
Review: Pasolini masterpiece. Great dialogue. Beautiful locations, faces, lighting, and camera direction. This film works on so many intellectual levels. It is at once surreal, bizarre, chic, beautiful, and much more. What else can one say? Like all Pasolini...pure genius!
Rating:
Summary: Awful transfer of a strange film
Review: Pasolini's Porcile is a strange double-tale of cannibalism, self-sacrifice, Nazis, and (for lack of a better term) swine-affinity.I'm very happy to own this film on DVD, but I wish the disc was better. The transfer is downright awful: the colors shift, it's poorly matted, the image bounces up and down (more than just Pasolini's handheld shots), the sound is awful and hissy, and the entire film is scratched - in fact, it looks to have been sourced from either a workprint or an original print (it features strange calibration frames between each reel, and the reels themselves are separated by several seconds of black space). I would recommend this to die-hard Pasolini enthusiasts, as it's probably the only Region 1 edition we'll ever see. Just don't expect a great transfer. Hopefully, Waterbearer will address some of these problems for their Volume 2 box set.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply strange but fascinating film
Review: Porcile (aka Pigsty, released in 1969) is one of Pasolini's most hauntingly original works. It interweaves two seemingly disconnected tales, that of a young man (Pierre Clémenti of Belle de Jour) forced into a life of cannibalism in a dreamlike medieval Wasteland, and that of the enigmatic son (Jean-Pierre Léaud of The 400 Blows) of an ex-Nazi industrialist in modern Germany. The cannibal and the young German, more attracted to pigs than to his beautiful fiancée, both become sacrificial victims of their different societies. This strange, grotesque and provocative parable, filmed with serene beauty and underlying horror, resonates on many different levels. Although Porcile has the reputation of being a "difficult film," it can also be viewed as one of Pasolini's most accessible. Just let its hallucinatory images wash over you, then think about about what it all means at your leisure. It should also be noted that this is not an abstract film, since each section has a definite, and sometimes suspenseful, story to tell. The film works because of the enormous tensions, both visceral and intellectual, around which it is built. In terms of history, we have the contrast between an overtly barbaric past, with cannibalism and Christian priests who ritually sacrifice young men and women, and a covertly barbaric present, with neo-Nazis running Big Business. Visually, we have the vast, barren spaces of the medieval Wasteland contrasting with the flat opulence of the Klotz Villa, where Pasolini uses lateral or head-on angles almost exclusively. The anti-bourgeois satire of Porcile's modern section is in startling contrast to the dreamlike Wasteland scenes. The series of monotonous conversations about the 'good old days' of Nazi Germany, often led by Mr. Klotz (Ugo Tognazzi of La Cage Aux Folles), quickly degenerates into noise, since its ideology is so pat. This knee-jerk parodying of the decadent bourgeoisie as swine in countless ways, both visually and verbally, is so over the top that one can only hope that Pasolini, an otherwise astute social critic, intended it as a satire of cheap satire, of lazy political "thinking." Of course, Porcile is infamous for its portrayal of cannibalism. But in fact this is presented (forgive the pun) in good taste. Pasolini goes to lengths to show, in the Wasteland section, that cannibalism is solely a matter of survival. But even as he downplays the titillation, Pasolini finds new dimensions to this theme. Take the scene of Clémenti's duel with a straggling (or is it deserting?) soldier. After scrambling over the desolate hills, they finally lock swords. When the soldier at last realizes that he has lost, he bows down, accepting his fate like prey awaiting the predator's coup de grace. But the ...filmmaker also infuses the scene, between these two attractive men, with a tender homoeroticism. Which is cut short when Clémenti whacks off the soldier's head and then, well, you know what's for lunch. Much of Porcile's power, and deep strangeness, comes from its suggestive openness. As Pasolini says, in the half hour documentary included on the DVD, "I've always posed various problems and left them open to consideration." That complex openness allowed me to challenge some of my assumptions - both obvious ones, about class and society, and more subtle ones about the nature of religion, history and film. Don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking and talking about Porcile, even dreaming about it, for a long time to come. The DVD is of good quality. I believe that the "weird bits" at the end of each reel (i.e., every 10 minutes) were intended by Pasolini as a sort of Brechtian "Alienation Effect." I assume that the film is correct as released, because the print comes directly from the Pasolini Foundation in Rome. By the way, since they control the rights, they insisted that the U.S. distributor release the DVD without any chapters (i.e., it's in one continuous track), to encourage people to watch the film in its entirety. Still, it's important to have this extraordinary part of Pasolini's filmography on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply strange but fascinating film
Review: Porcile (aka Pigsty, released in 1969) is one of Pasolini's most hauntingly original works. It interweaves two seemingly disconnected tales, that of a young man (Pierre Clémenti of Belle de Jour) forced into a life of cannibalism in a dreamlike medieval Wasteland, and that of the enigmatic son (Jean-Pierre Léaud of The 400 Blows) of an ex-Nazi industrialist in modern Germany. The cannibal and the young German, more attracted to pigs than to his beautiful fiancée, both become sacrificial victims of their different societies. This strange, grotesque and provocative parable, filmed with serene beauty and underlying horror, resonates on many different levels. Although Porcile has the reputation of being a "difficult film," it can also be viewed as one of Pasolini's most accessible. Just let its hallucinatory images wash over you, then think about about what it all means at your leisure. It should also be noted that this is not an abstract film, since each section has a definite, and sometimes suspenseful, story to tell. The film works because of the enormous tensions, both visceral and intellectual, around which it is built. In terms of history, we have the contrast between an overtly barbaric past, with cannibalism and Christian priests who ritually sacrifice young men and women, and a covertly barbaric present, with neo-Nazis running Big Business. Visually, we have the vast, barren spaces of the medieval Wasteland contrasting with the flat opulence of the Klotz Villa, where Pasolini uses lateral or head-on angles almost exclusively. The anti-bourgeois satire of Porcile's modern section is in startling contrast to the dreamlike Wasteland scenes. The series of monotonous conversations about the 'good old days' of Nazi Germany, often led by Mr. Klotz (Ugo Tognazzi of La Cage Aux Folles), quickly degenerates into noise, since its ideology is so pat. This knee-jerk parodying of the decadent bourgeoisie as swine in countless ways, both visually and verbally, is so over the top that one can only hope that Pasolini, an otherwise astute social critic, intended it as a satire of cheap satire, of lazy political "thinking." Of course, Porcile is infamous for its portrayal of cannibalism. But in fact this is presented (forgive the pun) in good taste. Pasolini goes to lengths to show, in the Wasteland section, that cannibalism is solely a matter of survival. But even as he downplays the titillation, Pasolini finds new dimensions to this theme. Take the scene of Clémenti's duel with a straggling (or is it deserting?) soldier. After scrambling over the desolate hills, they finally lock swords. When the soldier at last realizes that he has lost, he bows down, accepting his fate like prey awaiting the predator's coup de grace. But the ...filmmaker also infuses the scene, between these two attractive men, with a tender homoeroticism. Which is cut short when Clémenti whacks off the soldier's head and then, well, you know what's for lunch. Much of Porcile's power, and deep strangeness, comes from its suggestive openness. As Pasolini says, in the half hour documentary included on the DVD, "I've always posed various problems and left them open to consideration." That complex openness allowed me to challenge some of my assumptions - both obvious ones, about class and society, and more subtle ones about the nature of religion, history and film. Don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking and talking about Porcile, even dreaming about it, for a long time to come. The DVD is of good quality. I believe that the "weird bits" at the end of each reel (i.e., every 10 minutes) were intended by Pasolini as a sort of Brechtian "Alienation Effect." I assume that the film is correct as released, because the print comes directly from the Pasolini Foundation in Rome. By the way, since they control the rights, they insisted that the U.S. distributor release the DVD without any chapters (i.e., it's in one continuous track), to encourage people to watch the film in its entirety. Still, it's important to have this extraordinary part of Pasolini's filmography on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: what the hell was this?
Review: Porcile was the worst movie I have seen since Thugs life in DC. The part i did not like was when pocile did not pursue Lentil after his hut was burned down by Davy Crocker's gang. I did like the part when Porcile tried hit face in the pancreas by throwing a tv at the envolope. porcile was a disappointment from the start. Rob Lowe and Mimi Turnbuckle were terrible cast choices. See porcile 2:Lost in Cyberspace, it is rad.
Rating:
Summary: Pasolini's Perverse Pastime --Possible spoilers
Review: Sometimes hard to watch, but nonetheless, clever little film by Pasolini, Italy's most controversial director. Notable for the remarkably shocking Salo (Pasolini's last film, he was murdered after its completion), Porcile is a step below the former in its use of depraved characters and unthinkable subject matters. However, Pasolini has his way with perversions (that is in his films) and Pigsty utilizes a sufficient amount of ribald qualities for which Pasolini's films are known for.... Porcile presents the filmmaker's own beliefs on Fascism, the bourgeoisie, and demoralization. These ideas (plus abstract metaphors) were succeedingly used in the aforementioned Salo;120 Days Of Sodom. Porcile (or Pigsty) stars the great (and omnipresent) Ugo Tognazzi, as well as Marco Ferreri, who would later direct a slew of black comedy-drama pictures in the same vein as the film in question. These two actors definitely energize the film, portraying two awkward Fascists who seemingly tickle the film's prevailingly dark subject matter. All in all, Porcile is an acquired taste (hence, a cult film) but don't let the absurdities baffle you.
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