Dir. Marco Ferreri, 1969, 95 min
With Michel Piccoli, Anita Pallenberg, Gino Lavagetto, Annie Girardot
In Italian with English subtitles
In this magnificently inscrutable late-sixties masterpiece, Marco Ferreri, one of European cinema’s most idiosyncratic auteurs, goes through the looking glass and into a seemingly routine night in the life of an Italian gas mask designer, played, in a tour-de-force performance, by Michel Piccoli. In his claustrophobic mod home, he pampers his pill-popping wife, seduces his maid, and uncovers a gun that may have once been owned by John Dillinger—and then things get even stranger.
A surreal political missive about social malaise, Dillinger Is Dead finds absurdity in the mundane. It is a singular experience, both illogical and grandly existential.
Trailer