Made in 1965, when he was 26, “Fists In His Pocket” was Marco Bellochio’s first feature film. Having seen it recently on TCM, it is surprising that so few people have heard of it.

It is raw, powerful and absorbing, and doesn’t seem dated at all. Even with frustrating flaws, it is an invigorating experience that forcefully demonstrates how film can be a personal art form. I can see that young audiences today can still be drawn into a black and white film, gorgeously photographed, with subtitles. But for me, who was their age when the film came out, its pleasures are multiplied. Italian cinema was just breaking free of the limits of neorealism, and Bellochio was joining this movement, which included Visconti, Pasolini, Antonioni, Bertolucci and others.

Much of its success depends on the unforgettable performance of Lou Castel, a young Swedish non-actor who didn’t speak Italian, and whose voice had to be dubbed. He plays Alessandro (herein “Sandro”), an epileptic who lives with two brothers, their sister and their blind widowed mother in a luxurious home in a small Italian city dominated by strict Catholic doctrine. The sister, Guilia, , played by Paola Pitagora, is in her twenties but emotionally unstable and terrified of the outside world. She finds comfort, even delight in staying indoors with her family. The youngest brother, Julio, is mentally undeveloped and also epileptic. Only the eldest, Augusto, is without handicap. But he is frustrated at having to maintain stability in his defective family and manage their limited wealth. He is under strain trying to hold onto his fiancee, Maria, who is frustrated at his reluctance to set the wedding date.  He sees the only way out is for Sandro to get a job. While Sandro is eager to work too, he is totally confused and unfocused in his plans. He seems to want to raise chinchillas and sell them, but has no interest in learning how to run a business.

The film slowly, but artfully introduces the characters and fills in the story that leads to this impasse. It will focus on the choices Sandro makes to resolve it. But what Sandro says he wants to do, and what he actually does are often confused. While he says he feels guilty about his brother’s situation, he exhibits little affection for Augusto, and is often resentful of him. In fact Sandro only seems close to Guilia, for whom he exhibits sexual feelings, which she shyly reciprocates. Actually, the entire community seems sexually repressed by Catholic doctrine. Even Augusto’s attempts at limited lovemaking with Maria is spurned by her until their marriage.

The startling event that propels the story is Sandro’s decision to drive the family to its routine visit to the cemetery. It will include everyone except Augusto, who, Sandro says, is more needed at home to manage affairs. Although reluctant at first, because Sandro has no driver’s license, Augusto relents when Sandro says he passed the test, which is a lie. His real motive is revealed in a note, which Augusto is told not to read until Sandro drives off with the family. It says that Sandro will drive all four, including himself, off a cliff, thus freeing Augusto to have a normal life.

But, unexpectedly, Sandro changes his mind. Having read the note, Augusto is furious with Sandro when he returns, but he decides it better to hide the truth from the rest of the family, who only congratulate Sandro on driving well.

By now, this much is clear. Sandro is totally unpredictable, willful and without self-control. And he becomes increasingly destructive before the film ends, rather inconclusively I think. Still, Castel’s performance keeps us in suspense. We have been led to expect the worst from this dangerous lunatic, but Bellochio takes us beyond even that. Close to sixty years after its release, the film still has the power to shock and disturb.

The film’s major flaw is its sketchiness, as it leaves so many rich themes only suggested but then abandoned. As an attack on capitalism, which compels these unhappy people to maintain the appearance of success at any cost, no solid connection is made. These are not greedy people; their struggle for money is more annoyance than obsession. Similarly, the sexual repression under strict Catholicism is also circumspect. What we see of the townspeople, including a priest, shows a general malaise in which joy is muted even for the young. A telling scene is at a dance Sandro attends. The music is soft rock, so the dancers rarely touch, but each sex seems more comfortable with its own than in looking for a mate. But, again, the story doesn’t force the characters to examine this.

Finally, the subject of mental illness is confused, as it was for other films of that time. Epilepsy is inherited, of course, but this family exhibits dysfunctional pathology that goes beyond any genetic cause. While not directly accusing the evils of society, the implication is clearly there. In the sixties, the theories of British psychologist R.D. Laing was at its height, and not only in England but throughout Europe. Fascism especially was a targeted cause of insanity, most memorably in Bertolucci’s The Conformist and Visconti’s The Damned. Likewise, this film heavily relies on the theme, which dates it badly.