A handsome, enigmatic stranger (Terence Stamp) arrives at a bourgeois household in Milan and successively seduces each family member, not forgetting the maid. Then, as abruptly and mysteriously as he arrived, he departs. Unable to endure the void left in their lives, the father (Massimo Girotti) hands over his factory to the workers, the son abandons his vocation as a painter, the mother (Silvana Mangano) abandons herself to random sexual encounters, and the daughter sinks into catatonia. The maid (Laura Betti), however, becomes a saint. In this cool, richly complex and provocative political allegory Pasolini uses his schematic plot to explore family dynamics, the intersection of class and sex, and the nature of different sexualities. After winning a prize at Venice Festival, Theorem was subsequently banned on an obscenity charge, but Pasolini later won an acquittal on ground of the film's 'high artistic value'. Theorem is visually ravishing, with superb performances from all the cast and a brilliantly eclectic soundtrack - with music ranging from Mozart and Morricone to the natural sound of chirping birds.
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