Teorema (1968)

The Controversial Film Condemned by the Vatican!

Terence Stamp stars in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s award-winning and controversial film as a strange visitor who suddenly drops into the lives of an extremely bourgeois family. He plays both God and the Devil as he proceeds to seduce each member of the house including the maid. His divine and diabolical interaction with each character causes them to re-evaluate their belief systems and just as suddenly as he appears, he’s gone.

WINNER:
Venice Film Festival, Volpi Cup, Best Actress

"…it has the power to remain in your memory long after you think you’ve dismissed it." – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"a series of cool, beautiful, often enigmatic scenes that flow one into another with the rhythm of blank verse." – Vincent Canby, The New York Times

brilliant, haunting

Through gorgeous cinematography and a bold symbolic language that makes it very difficult to take the film literally, Pasolini investigates the hollowness of bourgeois life. The film may be difficult for those expecting either a straightforward narrative or a 'deep' avant-garde experience: by resisting those boundaries Pasolini created a film that is both hilarious and haunting, dealing frankly with sex in a way that is impossible to ignore but difficult to take seriously. My advice to anyone watching this film would be to just let it do its work. This is a remarkable piece of filmmaking, and as such will be denounced by those who desire easy categorization. It is joyful, sad, ridiculous, political, and almost religious despite Pasolini's atheism. By letting the unexplainable remain unexplained, Pasolini created a powerful film that really gets under the viewer's skin(as evidenced by the extreme polarization it causes). An absolute masterpiece! August 11, 2008

"A theorem is a proposition that has been or is to be proved on the basis of explicit assumptions...,

..Proving theorems is a central activity of mathematicians. Note that "theorem" is distinct from "theory". (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Teorema" (1968) is a fable that tells how a handsome young man (extremely attractive Terrence Stamp "with the eyes of an angel and the grin of the devil") stays as a guest in the house of a wealthy factory owner and seduces one after another all members of the household - the maid, the teenagers son and daughter, the wife, and the father (in this order). When released in 1968, the film had divided believers and atheists as much as critics. Some of Pasolini's comrades-Marxists were also infuriated by this attack on their ideology. Many viewers were disturbed by its removing sexual taboos even though sex is handled very tastefully. It is more a symbol of connection and closeness to God (or it could be to Devil, we may only guess). Made almost forty years ago, "Teorema" seems to be simple and puzzling at the same time. It reminded me Ingmar Bergman's movies from his "Trilogy of Faith" which sums up Bergman's own philosophy regarding religion and God - "God has never spoken because He does not exist". In Bergman's world where God does not exist, communication and understanding are not possible and everyone is locked in their loneliness like in a cage. In Pasolini's film, God sends his angel to a chosen family. He has spoken to them and known them but then he left them. Did they become happier? Is that possible for a human to keep on living like nothing happen after the encounter with God?

I watched "Teorema" for the first time few weeks ago but I still think about it trying to understand what "theorem" Pasolini tried to prove? I also was thinking about the films that were inspired by or reminded me a lot about "Teorema". I've mentioned Bergman already. Luis Bunuel with "Nazarin", "Viridiana"," Belle de jour" (1967) - the mother's transformation in "Teorema" reminds about the film immediately, and "Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie"(1972) come to mind. I was also reminded of Andrei Tarkovsky. The visual style, camera work and the use of music in "Teorema" seem similar with Russian Master's. His last film, "Sacrifice" may be the one closest to Pasolini's film.

I would never say that everyone must watch "Teorema". It is a very unusual film that could be easily dismissed as ridiculous and dated or it would be thought of as absolutely brilliant and mysterious. I have not decided yet but I can't forget it.

P.S. April 7, 2007 - It's been several months since I saw "Teorema" and now I believe that it is brilliant and belongs to the the best films ever made. One can meditate forever on its depths and mystery, and that's the sign of a great work of Art for me.

April 8, 2007

I'm Still Not Sure What I Just Watched

I saw Teorema because I've long wanted to see Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Salo" a movie I've still yet to see. After watching Teorema (a movie I've simultaneously heard great things about and terrible things about), I find myself wondering what it is I've just viewed? The movie is like a run-on sentence. A series of scenes that don't seem to end, but merely flow into each other. There's less dialogue than there was in Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny." Oddly enough, that movie has more haters than this film. I'm not giving Teorema 4 stars because I liked it enough to give it 4 stars, but only because I plan on reviewing it again once I've seen it again. I don't want to give it a bad review, but I don't want to give it a shining one either. Had I started watching this movie, having read no reviews of it or the synopsis, my mind would be an even bigger blank. There's no character development and, oddly enough, there's not even much sex. The movie is, really, about sex.
There's actually no female nudity and only brief shots of male nudity (which I assume is probably due to writer/director Pasolini's homosexuality). The movie is about a man (Terence Stamp) who is either God or Satan. He drops into the lives of an upper class Italian family and precedes to have sex with every member of the family. Then suddenly, without warning, he's gone. And the family is left to deal with his absence in increasingly weird ways. The weirdest of these ways comes from the father, who leaves us with one of the strangest (and hauntingly beautiful) ending scenes that I've ever seen. What's occurring, I might add, is not beautiful...How it's filmed is. When I say that God/Satan drops in and then disappears just as quickly is no exaggeration. He's not introduced; he's just there. And he doesn't depart. He's just gone. Pasolini, I've read, viewed himself not as a filmmaker but as a poet. That's very clear when watching the film. He uses images over story to tell his story. This can work depending on what you're doing. It worked on The Brown Bunny, because it was (among other things) a way to underline the loneliness of the main character. In this film, a straightforward narrative might've worked better because of the intriguing premise of the film. I think anyone can admit that the premise is intriguing. God or Satan has sex with all the members of a family. Pasolini's way of telling this story works in the effectiveness of the man appearing and disappearing, but it doesn't work so much in getting us to connect with the characters. Who knows? Maybe Pasolini didn't want us too anyway. This 4 stars is not my final grade for the film. I'm not even going to say that I liked it or disliked it. This is merely my view of the film; After another (or a few more) viewings, I'll bring back a more detailed review. November 16, 2006

all depth and no surface

This film is very difficult to warm up to because the symbols have revolted and knuckled the poor narrative under--the story is bullied by its own symbols. Whatever sparse narrative there is is written in terse, disjunctive emily-dickinsonisms. The constant flashing of smoking desert sand is too "waste land". The final scream, is well, you guessed it, Edvard Munch. In contrast, in a movie like Antonioni's "L'Avventura," the images are integrated into and organic with the narrative--you could never predict nor repeat the wholeness of Antonioni's movie, whereas Teorema seems a smattering of prefabricated material, most of which produces an intellectual reaction but no emotional resonance: rosary beads in the hands of an atheist.
I admire Pasolini's intent, and there is much in this movie I admire, but the admiration is cold and detached.
An ideal movie if you find yourself locked in an igloo over the weekend. October 26, 2006

The "Plan 9 from Outer Space" of Art-House Films

Unintentionally hilarious; so pretentious and poorly made that I was strangling with laughter several times. Jesus/God/Satan has sex with every member of a cartoonish bourgeois family and ruins their lives in various side-splitting ways. The maid becomes a saint who eats nettle soup, cures scarred children, and floats in the air. The wife bites the side of her finger, has sex with random strangers, and screams with all the authenticity of a teen in a slasher flick as Mozart's Requiem thunders in the background.

The movie is technically inept and badly written. Any randomly chosen film of Bunuel or Almodovar will have more to say about sexual politics than this Pasolini fiasco. Recommended only for connoisseurs of the atrocious.

Two stars for the "So bad it's good" factor.
September 14, 2006

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