‘Teorema’: The most important movie you’ve never seen
We’ve all got cinematic blindspots—perhaps you’ve never gotten around to Citizen Kane, or you’ve never seen a Charlie Chaplin movie—but there are many incredible and important films that, for a multitude of reasons, simply go unseen by the average film fan Some stories are ignored just because they’re told in another language, they’re ‘too arty’, they’re ‘too old’, or they’re too something else, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late for them to be given the popular recognition they deserve.
Teorema, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, is a film you might be familiar with if you’re interested in Italian cinema, provocative arthouse movies, or anything featuring Terence Stamp; but its place in cinema history exists largely outside the mainstream. Due to its rather experimental and often challenging approach to narrative—only 923 words are spoken during the one-hour 38-minute run-time—the film isn’t what you’d deem an ‘accessible’ watch, but it’s well worth getting lost within.
Released in 1968, the surrealist film follows a mysterious man played by Stamp, known only as The Visitor, as he arrives at a wealthy family’s house and transfixes them all. Why and how he arrives is not explained, but he seems to possess some divine presence that makes every member of the family unable to resist his charms. As the handsome stranger spends time with each individual, including the maid, he helps them overcome a serious issue in their lives, using his sexual prowess in the process.
Take, for example, the mother who feels unsatisfied with her husband. As soon as Stamp’s character arrives, she finds a sense of renewal as they embark on an affair, allowing her to become the happiest she’s been in years. Yet, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The Visitor abruptly leaves, and the family is left to reckon with their problems once again. The revelation and religious sense of awe he inspired in them all is snatched away, leading to consequences that tear the family apart.
With a simmering atmosphere, often deeply sensual, the characters grapple with the emptiness of their bourgeoisie lives without The Visitor, who has exposed the lack of spiritual fulfilment they possess as agents of capitalism and consumerism. Pasolini, a staunchly political and anti-bourgeois filmmaker, uses the movie to comment on the structures that hold capitalism and social order in place, using Stamp’s character to break them down and disrupt the so-called peace.
Intertwining sex and religion, Pasolini asserts that the power of sex and desire can be incredibly profound and divine, with The Visitor irreversibly affecting the characters with his erotic presence. Sex is transformative for this conservative and religious family, and Pasolini seems to suggest that desire and eroticism stand in opposition to restrictive and capitalistic order.
The film is a stunningly thought-provoking meditation on class and the construct of society, wherein money, tradition, and labour exploitation only cause significant harm. It’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom that is Pasolini’s most frequently discussed work, but Teorema is just as impactful while being considerably easier on the stomach. That’s not to say the film is an easy watch, but it’s perhaps a better starting point in Pasolini’s filmography and a title that deserves to be endorsed much more widely.
