Abstract

Religion plays a crucial role in the critical dimension of Pasolini’s movies. Yet the religion performed there is a thoroughly ‘pagan’ religion, a religion that is itself not critical at all. The question to be raised is why Pasolini does not refer to the ‘monotheistic’ kind of religion, which is critical – and even religion critical – in its core. The article tries to develop an answer to that question by means of patient and profound reflection upon Pasolini’s definition of ‘God’ as “a dream that allows no sleep and from which one cannot waken”.