2. Pasolini is considered a post-neorealist director, whose films “build upon neorealist tradition, but embody a very different style” (pg289). Based on both Bondanella’s analysis and Hawks & Sparrows, what are the neorealist characteristics you see? Where is the innovation?

2. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Hawks and Sparrows is a movie with abundant symbolism. The neorealist characteristics are obvious with the movie being a parable within a parable. The use of crow to deliver philosophical messages and the upper classes being represented by Hawks and the lower classes being represented by Sparrows is in line with the neorealist cinematic tradition. The focus of Pasolini on the images of militant communist members is innovative and that is what Bondanella analysis also points about. Hawks and Sparrows is a testimony of his departure from the general cinema as he finds a way to portray the possibility of comedy in a visibly hard and cruel society where the social realities are so harsh. So, the movie, despite being a comedy cannot be called just a comedy.