Writing about this strange film is going to be, for me, the equivalent of walking a tightrope 1,000 feet above the ground with no rope to secure me if and once I fall. I can't place Pasolini's TEOREMA because I'm not quite sure what it's trying to tell me. It's the same reaction, albeit different, I got from watching Bergman's PERSONA the first time -- it left me with a feeling of being suspended in thin air over a field of terrifying white extending itself out into infinity; I had nothing to hold on to, nothing to help me stand on firm, defined ground, and a universe of blankness just there, indifferent as to what I felt or thought or knew or ignored.
Pasolini is one of the most difficult directors the history of cinema has created. His "infamy" after having produced SALO is on a global level: anyone who mentions this movie will create a quiet sense of panic due to the unflinching nature of Sade's story of torture and extreme capitalism devouring humankind.
The following review will apply only to my first view of the film: When an irresistible force comes to visit a community -- in this case, a family -- of people whose lives are mundane in the extreme (nothing wrong with that, of course), the effect is of a total surrender. Terence Stamp is this enigmatic person, a young man who looks like any other young man of his time: he might as well be going to college, since he has this look about him that implies as such. But his presence, his stare that seems not from this world at times since it looks right into you, causes the housekeeper to be the first one to give into him even as she tries to kill herself. Why would she do such a thing? The movie doesn't address this issue -- maybe as he looked into her, he took something indelible from her conscience, something that she still held on to. Or maybe he saw right into her soul and that is something most people cannot bear.
Which is probably why the daughter goes insane. As a matter of fact, all of the characters -- the units in this family, the smallest form of society -- fall prey to an insanity that once he departs, devours them whole. It's as if he were this wonderful narcotic being who shows them their inner truth through the act of sex, and then, once this being had fulfilled his mission, like a psychic vampire, it withdrew completely from their lives. Without this wonderful person, who can they turn to? The son has no one -- his paintings are what he considers rubbish and he wallows in self-hatred. The mother also has no one to turn to except anonymous lovers who use her and leave her abandoned on the way to Milan. The father loses his complete sense of masculine self, reneges his business, peels away his clothes in the middle of a train station as he cruises another man who resembles this stranger, and later embarks on a trek into unknown territory.
I'm wondering, then, why the maid, who was the one who almost killed herself, was allowed this complete transformation of her character, turning into a saint who prepares herself for what seems like a rebirth. My guess is that she being of "humble" birth, a woman not unlike Mary Mother of Jesus, she'd also be stripped of any ties to the material world that could hinder a spiritual evolution. I become more certain that the stranger saw a potential evil in her, withdrew it; she felt the initial horror following this extraction and even tried to commit suicide but was aided to withstand his presence and later departure and this allowed her to not only survive, but Become.
Now, cinematically, TEOREMA follows a broken narrative with stylish flash-cuts that occur out of time and sequence: a style very much of the time it was made. The recurring image of a desert is something we are presented here and there, but doesn't correlate to anything at first. The actual moment when the stranger meets the sister and her mother is also seen in sepia tones, in a dream-like fashion. The actual progression of the story seems sloppy -- snippets here and there that later add up to a whole. Dialog is kept to a bare minimum and the characters speak in extended monologues that look odd but reflect their inner nature, their reaction to his presence, and then their reaction to his departure.
TEOREMA is an experimental film from start to finish, frustrating at times, and one that needs subsequent viewings to be understood, although I wouldn't be surprised if this abstract movie doesn't garner we understand it fully, but just experience it as it is: a movie equivalent to Musique Concrete.
Pasolini is one of the most difficult directors the history of cinema has created. His "infamy" after having produced SALO is on a global level: anyone who mentions this movie will create a quiet sense of panic due to the unflinching nature of Sade's story of torture and extreme capitalism devouring humankind.
The following review will apply only to my first view of the film: When an irresistible force comes to visit a community -- in this case, a family -- of people whose lives are mundane in the extreme (nothing wrong with that, of course), the effect is of a total surrender. Terence Stamp is this enigmatic person, a young man who looks like any other young man of his time: he might as well be going to college, since he has this look about him that implies as such. But his presence, his stare that seems not from this world at times since it looks right into you, causes the housekeeper to be the first one to give into him even as she tries to kill herself. Why would she do such a thing? The movie doesn't address this issue -- maybe as he looked into her, he took something indelible from her conscience, something that she still held on to. Or maybe he saw right into her soul and that is something most people cannot bear.
Which is probably why the daughter goes insane. As a matter of fact, all of the characters -- the units in this family, the smallest form of society -- fall prey to an insanity that once he departs, devours them whole. It's as if he were this wonderful narcotic being who shows them their inner truth through the act of sex, and then, once this being had fulfilled his mission, like a psychic vampire, it withdrew completely from their lives. Without this wonderful person, who can they turn to? The son has no one -- his paintings are what he considers rubbish and he wallows in self-hatred. The mother also has no one to turn to except anonymous lovers who use her and leave her abandoned on the way to Milan. The father loses his complete sense of masculine self, reneges his business, peels away his clothes in the middle of a train station as he cruises another man who resembles this stranger, and later embarks on a trek into unknown territory.
I'm wondering, then, why the maid, who was the one who almost killed herself, was allowed this complete transformation of her character, turning into a saint who prepares herself for what seems like a rebirth. My guess is that she being of "humble" birth, a woman not unlike Mary Mother of Jesus, she'd also be stripped of any ties to the material world that could hinder a spiritual evolution. I become more certain that the stranger saw a potential evil in her, withdrew it; she felt the initial horror following this extraction and even tried to commit suicide but was aided to withstand his presence and later departure and this allowed her to not only survive, but Become.
Now, cinematically, TEOREMA follows a broken narrative with stylish flash-cuts that occur out of time and sequence: a style very much of the time it was made. The recurring image of a desert is something we are presented here and there, but doesn't correlate to anything at first. The actual moment when the stranger meets the sister and her mother is also seen in sepia tones, in a dream-like fashion. The actual progression of the story seems sloppy -- snippets here and there that later add up to a whole. Dialog is kept to a bare minimum and the characters speak in extended monologues that look odd but reflect their inner nature, their reaction to his presence, and then their reaction to his departure.
TEOREMA is an experimental film from start to finish, frustrating at times, and one that needs subsequent viewings to be understood, although I wouldn't be surprised if this abstract movie doesn't garner we understand it fully, but just experience it as it is: a movie equivalent to Musique Concrete.