Teorema

If you asked an uncouth hillbilly to imagine European art cinema, he might conjour something like Teorema (1968). Pier Paolo Pasolini hits every conceivable stereotype, from stilted symbolism to elliptical aimlessness. It's simultaneously fascinating and insufferable.

The Visitor (Terence Stamp) visits a middle-class Italian family. He systematically seduces the entire household: maid Emilia (Laura Betti), businessman Paolo (Massimo Girotti), repressed wife Lucia (Silvia Mangano), the artistic son (Ninetto Davoli) and daughter (Anne Wiazemsky). Each family member finds their desires and talents stimulated by The Visitor. Yet he leaves as mysteriously as he came, leaving his charges to ponder existence without him.

Teorema seems Pasolini's bid to outdo Michaelangelo Antonioni as Italy's most pretentious director. He presents seemingly random shots and scenes without benefit of plot or characterization. The Visitor need do no more than read a book to seduce a character. One character winds up wandering nude in the desert; another's buried alive. For further meaning, Pasolini shoots early scenes in silent black-and-white, inter-cuts desert photography with Italian cityscape and drapes them in Biblical quotes and Mozart's Requiem. Clearly Pasolini wants to make a deep statement.

Yet his preoccupations seem easy enough to decode. Teorema equates sexual liberation with religious rapture. Terence Stamp's handsome Visitor becomes a carnal Jesus, seducing the entire family and making them better for the experience. Lucia becomes sexually adventurous; Paolo embarks on a spiritual awakening; Angelino finds artistic inspiration pissing on carpets. Best of all, Emilia becomes a holy woman who heals lepers and levitates! Some characters meet tragic ends, yet the message is clear: bourgeois society stifles not only sexual but spiritual realization.

Is Teorema really so simple? Any film student could craft a convincing defense based on thematic content alone. But Italian cinema is unsubtle on its best days, preferring style to narrative, broad themes to deep characterization. Unlike, say, Luchino Visconti or Sergio Leone, Pasolini's style only interests up to a point. We're expected to read deep meaning into every bizarre image and unmotivated action - perfect for Intro to Film Analysis midterms, but not conducive to audience enjoyment. How seriously, really, can you take an aroused maid jamming a hose down her throat while her paramour watches?

For all that, Teorema is strangely watchable. It may well require multiple viewings to digest. After all, Picnic at Hanging Rock went from head-scratcher to personal favorite through rewatches. But Peter Weir's film has obvious appeal: beautiful photography, hypnotic music, ethereal atmosphere and a palpable sense of dread. If Teorema has a purpose beyond its baroque "themes," it's eluded me.