By Anthony Lane

The Italian film director Marco Bellocchio, born in November, 1939, is still going strong. That strength is apparent in his new documentary, “Marx Can Wait,” which opens at IFC on Friday. Also showing are his two earliest features, “Fists in the Pocket” (1965), which remains every bit as combat-ready as its title suggests, and “China Is Near” (1967)—not easy to see on the big screen, as is often the case with Bellocchio’s movies, so catch it while you can.

“Marx Can Wait” begins with a table being laid for a family gathering. Bellocchio is in attendance, together with a roster of his relatives, including his four surviving siblings: Letizia, Piergiorgio, Maria Luisa, and Alberto. It is a convivial occasion, with glasses raised in a toast, and such bonhomie, to anyone versed in Bellocchio’s work, is a kind of surprising joke; no director has done more to calibrate family tensions, and to stretch them to a snapping point. Dinner time, in “Fists in the Pocket,” was like a ticking bomb, and the hero—if you could call him that—argued that his older brother would find life so much easier if the rest of the household could just die.

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