Teorema / Theorem (1968) Blu-Ray Criterion Collection, DVD9 and Blu-Ray BFI
on March 31st, 2020 at 15:37
Throughout his career, novelist, essayist, and auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini (Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom; Oedipus Rex; The Gospel According to St. Matthew) always seemed concerned with a seamless combination of the sexual and the religious. In his 1968 film Theorem (Teorema), adapted from his own novel, he occupies this same thematic space in an almost enigmatic and surreal story about a rich family, their maid, and a man simply known as “The Visitor” (Terence Stamp).
Arriving at the wealthy family’s home, the stranger quickly inserts himself into their lives and possesses a strange, almost supernatural seductiveness over all of them, male and female alike. He seduces each member of the household, not the least of which, the family’s maid, Emilia. After he works his will on them all and makes his way through each member, he leaves just as quickly as he came, leaving them all feeling empty. The seduction of their maid, in particular, seems to leave a peculiar, unsettled feeling with the rich family, as if they have been even more debased knowing this. They are left pondering what has occurred, and how The Visitor could have held such sway over them all. Was he an angel of sensuality, or, Lucifer, the bringer of light?
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