A wealthy Italian family is thrown into chaos when a mysterious and attractive stranger arrives. He seduces every member of the household and then vanishes without explanation. Each person is profoundly changed, yet none can understand who the visitor was or why he came. Cool, cryptic, and deeply provocative, this political allegory from director Pier Paolo Pasolini unfolds as a metaphysical puzzle. Once barred from exhibition by the Catholic Church for alleged ‘degeneracy’, the film stands as a fierce Marxist critique of sex, religion, and art.

Reviews

‘It is as if Pasolini has imagined how Italy’s bland, complacent, stagnant governing class could be blown wide open: like putting a hundredweight of dynamite in the San Andreas fault.’
★★★★★
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian