9/10
Petri's masterpiece remains a blackly funny, darkly sensual assault upon the bourgeoisie!
30 August 2020
In maestro, Elio Petri's final gripping instalment of his outstanding "trilogy of neurosis", the hugely respected, enviably versatile Italian director's stunning satire 'Property is No Longer a Theft' (1973) is a blackly funny, darkly sensual assault upon bourgeois sensibilities that uncomfortably feels more than a little relevant 40 years on, and is therefore richly deserving of the recently restored, downright essential Arrow Academy Blu-ray, which lavishly presents the exceptionally intelligent, savagely skewed satire, 'Property is No Longer a Theft' in so gloriously a vivid fashion as to highlight the uncommon perspicacity of the film's deliciously caustic script!

Featuring immaculate performances from a remarkable cast of Italian screen icons: Ugo Tognazzi, Flavio Bucci, and a memorably eccentric turn by the incomparable Giallo siren, Daria Nicolodi. Elio Petri's stylish, rewardingly literate, sacred cow slaughtering satire provides a feast of visually stimulating filmmaking from this inventive Italian iconoclast, and, lastly, but by no means beastly, the impeccable, Ennio Morricone score is yet another sublime sonic triumph from the unrivalled musical iconoclast! Deservedly rescued from languishing ignominiously in some forgotten film vault, Petri's immersive, fascinatingly enigmatic agitprop thriller positively scintillates on HD, and resolutely retains all of its considerable power to delight, and enthral those canny cineastes who have the conspicuously good taste to track down Petri's unusually cogent masterpiece!
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