Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Teorema is the story of a wealthy family whose upper-class lifestyle is turned upside down when they invite a stranger into their home. The film is a study of a family from Milan who endure some serious revelations upon inviting this man into their home as they cope with their identities and their environment. Starring Terence Stamp, Laura Betti, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky, and Ninetto Davoli. Teorema is a majestic and surreal film from Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Set in the bourgeoisie world of Milan, the film revolves around a wealthy family who invite a mysterious visitor to their home for a brief stay as his presence would turn their world upside down. It is a film with a simple premise as it play into a family who spent much of their lives living in the bourgeoisie society as they’re not fully aware of what the world around them. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s script doesn’t feature a conventional plot, despite featuring a straightforward narrative, nor does it feature a lot of dialogue in favor of characters reacting to this mysterious and unnamed visitor (Terence Stamp). The visitor’s presence would create a reaction to this family including its maid Emilia (Laura Betti) who is suffering from depression as her encounter with the visitor has her facing many things. The visitor’s time at this home is only for the film’s first half but his impact would play a major key role in the film’s second half as it relates to the family.
Pasolini’s direction is largely straightforward in its compositions yet it does contain an element of surrealism as it relates to the world of this bourgeoisie family as it is also shot on location in and around Milan. There are some wide and medium shots of the locations as well as the home of this family yet Pasolini also uses it to convey the sense of isolation this family lives in as it is clear that their lack of interaction outside of their environment has made them too comfortable. Here in this strange visitor, the bubble that this family is living in proves to full of faults and fallacies as the visitor is someone who would inspire each member of the family in some way. The usage of the close-ups and medium shots add an intimacy to what Pasolini is conveying in how each of the family members and the maid deal with this visitor.
While much of the film’s first half is straightforward, there are elements that are surreal that would include recurring images of gray and dusty landscapes. The second half of the film is where Pasolini brings in a lot of these surreal moments as they’re more about these revelations of this family and their own individual needs and wants. Pasolini also play into the idea of spirituality as well as some of the harsh realism of the modern world since the family patriarch Paolo (Massimo Girotti) runs a factory as he is already troubled by some of the growing tension between factory workers and those in charge. By the film’s third act where Paolo and his film start to unravel in different ways, it all play into these ideas of existentialism as well as identity. Notably as it features Paolo and the recurring images of the gray landscape that he’s been thinking about as well as the lack of depth in the bubble he had lived in for many years with his family. Overall, Pasolini crafts an entrancing and eerie film about a mysterious visitor’s time at the home of a Milanese bourgeoisie family and its aftermath.
Cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini does brilliant work with the film’s cinematography to capture the lush colors of the locations within the family home that is a direct contrast to the more realistic look of the locations in and outside of Milan with the opening shots of the film presented in a sepia-like filter. Editor Nino Baragli does amazing work with the editing with its stylish usage of jump-cuts for the recurring images of gray landscape that appear every now and then as well as rhythmic cuts to play into the drama. Art director Luciano Puccini does excellent work with the look of the family home with its stylish rooms that play into the personality of the characters.
Costume designers Roberto Capucci and Marcella De Marchis do fantastic work with the costumes with Capucci creating lavish and stylish clothes for the family matriarch to wear with De Marchis creating clothes for the other characters that are posh but casual. The sound work of Bernardino Fronzetti is superb for its atmosphere of the locations at the home where it’s tranquil in comparison to the noisier world of industrial-driven Milan. The film’s music by Ennio Morricone is tremendous for its mixture of lush orchestral music mixed in with elements of jazz that is driven by horns as well as a bit of rock n roll while its soundtrack features a classical piece from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The film’s incredible cast feature some notable small roles from Ninetto Davoli as the postman Angelino, Adele Cambria as a maid also named Emilia, Alfonso Gatto as a doctor, Susanna Pasolini as an old peasant, and Laura Betti as the family maid in Emilia whose encounter with the visitor has her dealing with ideas of spirituality. Andres Jose Cruz Soublette is superb as the young man Pietro who rooms with the visitor as he would later cope with his identity as well as the world he lives in. Anne Wiazemsky is fantastic as the family daughter Odetta who is a young woman of innocence as someone who cares for her father as her meeting with the visitor has her thinking about men in a sexual way as it becomes an emotional revelation for her.
Massimo Girotti is excellent as the family patriarch Paolo as a man who owns and runs a factory who becomes ill as he also copes with the world of industrialization and social turmoil as well as dreams of a land where his encounters with the visitor forces him to see things differently. Silvana Mangano is amazing as Lucia as the family matriarch whose encounter with the visitor awakens her own sexual desires as she deals with the trappings of her own surroundings where she would go into an existential journey of her own. Finally, there’s Terence Stamp in a sensational performance as the visitor as this mysterious young man who is a guest at this home where he doesn’t do much other than just read books, play with a dog, and other casual activities as he is also someone that doesn’t reveal exactly who he is as Stamp just plays it straight in an understated yet ravishing performance.
Teorema is a spectacular film from Pier Paolo Pasolini. Featuring a great cast, lush visuals, a riveting music score by Ennio Morricone, and a study of identity and lifestyle. The film is a provocative and rapturous film that explores the life of a bourgeoisie family as their world goes upside down following a strange visit from a mysterious young man as it play into the many faults of the upper-class and their disconnection with the rest of the world. In the end, Teorema is a phenomenal film from Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Pier Paolo Pasolini Films: (Accattone) – (La Rabbia) - Mamma Roma - (Location Hunting in Palestine) – (The Gospel According to Matthew) – (Love Meetings) – (The Hawks and the Sparrows) – The Witches (1967 film)- The Earth Seen from the Moon - (Oedipus Rex) – (Porcile) – (Medea (1969 film)) – (Appunti per un film sull’India) – (Notes Towards an African Orestes) – The Decameron - The Canterbury Tales - Arabian Nights - Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
© thevoid99 2020
Written and directed by Catherine Breillat, A ma soeur! (Fat Girl) is the story of a twelve-year old girl who is on vacation with her family including her 15-year old sister who falls for an Italian law student leading to a corruption of innocence. The film is a coming-of-age story that revolves on a young girl who deals with her looks as well as her older sister’s beauty just as she watches her sister’s loss of innocence. Starring Anais Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero de Rienzo, Arsinee Khanjian, Romain Goupil, and Laura Betti. A ma soeur! is an eerie and mesmerizing film from Catherine Breillat.
The film revolves around a couple of sisters vacationing where the eldest meets an Italian law student as she would lose her virginity to him thinking its love while her younger sister deals with what she sees and the corruption it would bring. It’s a film with a simple and minimalist premise as it mainly takes place in the span of a few days as it’s really about the relationship of two sisters who don’t really look like each other as the 15-year old Elena (Roxane Mesquida) is thin and beautiful while the 12-year old Anais (Anais Reboux) is fat and insecure. Catherine Breillat’s screenplay doesn’t have much of a plot as it’s more about Anais’ fascination with her older sister’s interest towards sex upon meeting the Italian law student Fernando (Libero de Rienzo) who charms Elena and her parents (Arsinee Khanjian and Romain Goupil). Upon visiting her later that night, the two engage in sexual activity much to Elena’s reluctance with Anais watching with discomfort and intrigue. Notably as the relationship becomes troubling with Anais feeling disconnected from Elena as well as some moments that would play into the dissolution of the relationship.
Breillat’s direction is intoxicating for the compositions she creates in the film as well as aiming for something simple and to the point in her approach to the story. Shot on locations in France at small towns such as La Palmyre for the beach scenes and Les Maithes for the resident scenes along with some interior shots at a studio at Arpajon. Breillat does use wide shots of these locations to play into the sense of boredom Anais and Elena endure during the vacation as well as these moments such as the woods that would be important in their idea of love. The attraction between Elena and Fernando is immediate but Elena’s idea of sex and losing her virginity is seen from something that feels innocent but Anais who would watch their first sexual encounter in her bed in the same room doesn’t see it that way. Especially as Fernando would coerce Elena into ideas about willing to do things for him as an act of love.
For Anais, seeing her sister falling for Fernando is troubling just as she starts to deal with her own physicality such as a scene looking at herself in the mirror exposing her breasts. It’s a scene that is disturbing considering that Anais is underage while Elena is 15 years old though she’s only one year away from being legal (in Europe) as it is equally as disturbing that she wants to lose her virginity to a law student in his 20s who would trick her into having sex thinking she would marry him later on. Instead, things get troubling as it relates to the fact that the vacation was cut short because Elena and Anais’ father had to leave vacation for business and later other things that would impact the vacation altogether during an appearance from Fernando’s mother (Laura Betti). Breillat would create these intricate compositions that play into the drama including a second sex scene that is shown from Anais’ perspective as she is seen in the foreground while Elena and Fernando are in the background. Even as it play into this idea of a loss of innocence that would come to ahead in the film’s final moments which play into a graphic scene of violence. Overall, Breillat creates a riveting yet unsettling film about two sisters and their loss of innocence in their encounter towards sex.
Cinematographer Yorgos Arvanitis does brilliant work with the film’s cinematography as it is low-key in its approach to colors for many of the film’s exteriors along with the look of the interiors including the film’s two major sex scenes. Editor Pascale Chavance does amazing work with the editing as it is straightforward with some jump-cuts in a few scenes that don’t require long shots in some of the big dramatic moments. Production designer Francois Renaud Labarthe, with set decorators Cecilia Blom, Fabienne David, Christophe Graziani, Fabrice Heraud, Gerald Lemaire, Jean-Luc Molle, and Yann Richard, does fantastic work with the look of the bedroom that Elena and Anais share as well as a few other interiors at the house.
Costume designers Ann Dunsford and Catherine Meillan do terrific work with the costumes from the stylish and skinnier look that Elena wears to the more casual look of Anais. The sound work of Jean Minondo is superb for its natural approach to the sound in the way a location sounds as well as music that played on a radio. The film’s soundtrack largely consists of diegetic music that is either played on location or through a score by Breillat that is played in a couple of scenes with music from Laura Betti, Tavernanova, and David Bowie.
The casting by Fabrice Bigot, Gilles Cannatella, Olivier Carbone, Nicolas Lubin, and Michael Weill is wonderful as it feature a few notable small roles from Laura Betti as Fernando’s mother, Albert Goldberg as a mysterious man at a rest stop, Romain Goupil as Elena and Anais’ father, and Arsinee Khanjian as Elena and Anais’ mother. Libero De Rienzo is excellent as Fernando as a charming law student who falls for Elena as he convinces her to engage in anal and oral sex as a way to give her this idea of what love is. Roxane Mesquida is amazing as Elena as a 15-year old girl who falls for Fernando thinking it would give her this idea of love and sex only to realize that it’s actually complicated and filled with a lot of demands she’s too immature to understand. Finally, there’s Anais Reboux in an incredible performance as Anais as a 12-year old girl who is fascinated by the idea of sex despite her own issues with her appearance as she also becomes fascinated but also disgusted by what Fernando and Elena does as it adds to her own sense of despair as well as feeling disconnected from her sister.
A ma soeur! is a phenomenal film from Catherine Breillat. Featuring a great cast, mesmerizing visuals, and a disturbing story of the ideas of sex and love. It’s a film that is definitely not for everyone as it play into the idea of girls dealing with their own image as well as the expectations of love and sex that is filled with complexities they’re unprepared to understand as well as an ending that is visceral in its delivery. In the end, A ma soeur! is a tremendous film from Catherine Breillat.
Catherine Breillat Films: (A Real Young Girl) – (36 Fillette) – Romance - (Brief Crossing) – (Sex is Comedy) – (Anatomy of Hell) – (The Last Mistress) – (Bluebeard (2009 film)) – (La belle endormie) – (Abuse of Weakness)
© thevoid99 2018
Based on the medieval poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, I racconti di Canterbury (The Canterbury Tales) is a film that collects eight different tales that play into the lives of different characters during the time of medieval England. Written for the screen and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the film is the second film in a trilogy of films relating to the idea of life where Pasolini plays the role of Chaucer who would tell different stories that took place in those times. Starring Hugh Griffith, Laura Betti, Ninetto Davoli, Franco Citti, Josephine Chaplin, Jenny Runacre, and John Francis Lane. I racconti di Canterbury is a wild and outrageously-bawdy film from Pier Paolo Pasolini.
The film follows Geoffrey Chaucer who arrives to a land medieval England to write a story as he observes his surroundings leading to him writing eight different stories in a sensationalized manner. Among them involves a nobleman marrying a young woman unaware of her sexual history, a vendor who meets a mysterious summoner over things he saw, a young man making trouble as he finds work, a middle-aged woman trying to find a new husband, a carpenter’s apprentice trying to seduce his master’s wife, two students trying to swindle a grain miller, thieves finding some mysterious treasure while trying to find Death, and a greedy friar gets what he deserves. All of these tales play into some kind of immorality that is looming as well as an exploration of sex in those times where it was free and all about joy rather than people profiting from it.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s screenplay does take an episodic approach to the narrative where it is straightforward as it begins and ends with Chaucer writing these stories as he would pop up every now and then to come up with what he wants to tell. Notably as Pasolini would provide his own take into Chaucer’s story and provide a context that is quite graphic as it play into some of the things that happened. Even as it showcases some complexities in one of the stories where a vendor would report two things he saw and how one of these crimes is handled as it shows that not much has changed back in medieval times to what is happening in the modern world.
Pasolini’s direction is definitely stylish in the way he portrays medieval England as it is shot on various locations in England including much of its countryside areas. While there are a lot of usage of wide shots for the various locations as well as some gorgeous compositions that play into the scope of the interiors that the characters go into. Much of Pasolini’s compositions rely on intimate moments such as the scenes of Chaucer in his study trying to write something or scenes involving characters in sexual situations. There are close-ups and medium shots for much of the film yet Pasolini is trying to understand what is happening in those times and how he interprets it as it play into those wanting some kind of satisfaction that had been constrained in those times but also moments that are confrontational in a comic manner. Most notably the story about this young man named Perkin (Ninetto Davoli) who is this Charles Chaplin-like figure with a bowler hat and a cane that just causes mischief in his search to find a job and be with women. It’s among these moments that are offbeat as well as the story about the carpenter’s apprentice who would find a way to fool his boss claiming that a Biblical flood is coming. There are also moments that are intense as it relates to a final story with this lavish sequence involving this idea of Hell and it is told with a sense of farcical humor and stark imagery.
The sexual content is definitely racy as it features nudity from both men and women as well as scenes of homosexuality early in the film that play into this idea of sodomy which were quite extreme at the time. Notably in the story about the vendor and summoner who would witness these events that do play into events that are happening in the modern world. The stories do have this exploration of immorality that still had an innocence before the emergence of a more extreme immorality in the form of capitalism where Pasolini doesn’t really say anything about capitalism. Yet, he would show how this emergence would occur and how it would impact certain behaviors that would complicate the world while there are those who would reject this new idea to maintain an idea that was already working. Overall, Pasolini creates a whimsical yet rapturous film about the lives of several people told through the mind of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli does amazing work with the film’s cinematography as it play into the grey-like exteriors of some of the locations with its fog and rain as well as the usage of natural lights for some of its interiors. Editors Enzo Cone and Nino Baragli do excellent work with the editing as it play into some offbeat rhythms for much of the film’s humor as well as in some of the dramatic and darker moments in the film. Art director Dante Ferretti and set decorator Ken Muggleston do brilliant work with the art direction from the look of some of the castle interiors as well as some of the homes and a few of the exterior designs of the castles.
Costume designer Danilo Donati does fantastic work with the costumes from the look of the dresses as well as the clothes of the men including the tights which pay a lot of attention to detail into how their bulges are presented. Sound mixer Gianni D’Amico does nice work with the sound as it play into the atmosphere of some of the gatherings as well as the markets and other places involving a large group of people. The film’s music is directed by Ennio Morricone as it play into various music pieces of the time that include woodwinds, folk songs, and other kind of pieces that was prevalent during that period of medieval times.
The film’s superb cast include some notable small roles such as John Francis Lane as a greedy friar, Jenny Runacre as the carpenter’s wife, Robin Askwith as a young thief who enjoys having sex with prostitutes and urinate on other patrons at a pub, Tom Baker as a man being pursued by an aging yet horny married woman, Dan Thomas as the carpenter’s apprentice, J.P. Van Dyne as a cook who hires Perkin much to his own regret, Judy Stewart-Murray as a lady-in-waiting for the Wife of Bath, Albert King as a grain miller, Eileen King as the miller’s wife, Heather Johnson as the miller’s daughter, Patrick Duffet and Eamann Howell as two students needing grain for an assignment, and Pier Paolo Pasolini as Geoffrey Chaucer. Michael Balfor is terrific as the cuckold carpenter who is unaware of the trick he’s being played by his apprentice while Hugh Griffith is fantastic as the nobleman who marries a young woman unaware of her own desires for another man.
Josephine Chaplin is wonderful as the young woman who marries the nobleman as she is in love with another man while Laura Betti is brilliant as the Wife of Bath as a woman who is trying to find another husband as her current husband is dying in the hope for some sexual satisfaction. Ninetto Davoli is excellent as Perkin as this Chaplin-esque figure who is a man of total mischief as well as go after anything as he’s a joy to watch. Finally, there’s Franco Citti as the Devil as a man who pretends to be a vendor who observes a case of sodomy where he goes after a summoner and gives him a choice as it’s a very low-key yet effective performance.
I racconti di Canterbury is a spectacular film from Pier Paolo Pasolini. Featuring a great cast, outlandish sets and costumes, gorgeous photography, and offbeat moments that are playful to grotesque. It’s a film that explore a period in time where it was free but also intense as it also show some elements that are still happening in the modern world. In the end, I racconti di Canterbury is a riveting and extravagant film from Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Pier Paolo Pasolini Films: (Accattone) – (La Rabbia) – Mamma Roma – (Location Hunting in Palestine) – (The Gospel According to Matthew) – (Love Meetings) – (The Hawks and the Sparrows) – The Witches (1967 film)- The Earth Seen from the Moon - (Oedipus Rex) – Teorema – (Porcile) – (Medea (1969 film)) – (Appunti per un film sull’India) – (Notes Towards an African Orestes) – The Decameron - Arabian Nights – Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
© thevoid99 2017
