Medea

This version of Medea, overall quite excellent, captures interesting aspects of the original piece. Familiarity with the story is necessary, though, and Passolini's story picks up a bit earlier than Euripides'. He runs through a stream of largely non-verbal sequences that establish a strong sense of place and emotional element that carry through the film. Classicists will enjoy the visual presentation of Iolkis, Chalkis, and their inhabitants -- though I still find it puzzling why the Argo is presented as little more than a raft; perhaps the budget was squandered on making a believable Centaur. Nonetheless, this film captures the mystical, religious, and passionate elements of Euripides' vision, and is highly recommended.

Pasolini began his revisiting of the old myths with "gospel according to St Matthews" ,perhaps the best rendition of Christ's life on the screen,then tackled the Greek legends ,first "Edipe Re" then "Medea".

"Edipe Re" was framed by a prologue and an epilogue which took place in this day and age."Medea" displays two worlds colliding:Jason's one,a rational world where science begins to surface,and Medea's one,which is that of superstition,magic, a world that is to disappear.The legendary Golden Fleece is nothing but an old rag.And Pasolini does not show the ending of the legend when Medea flies away on her chariot;it's neither a Hollywoodian film ,nor one of those peplums Italian directors used to make by the dozen ten years before.The centaur -played by earnest thespian Laurent Terzieff- ,the only concession to some kind of show,looks like an ordinary character.Some users pointed out the primitive side of the background.But let's not forget that there are two degrees:Medea's world is primitive to the core;Jason's one is attaining what we call civilization.

There are several directors that make "arty" films that are certainly not for everyone. Pasolini has also done films which can be more easily acceptable by wider audiences; yet this is not one of them. This is one of those films that can and will be liked by only a few people. Others will turn their head the other way or simply hate it...

Well I like weird art & films, I like Pasolini, and I liked Medea in various interesting aspects. I suppose one should at least know the basics of Euripedes story to comprehend the story - Pasolini doesn't focus in the story so much, important facts are assumed by the viewer and the dialogues are scarce within the film. No narration exists.

I think Pasolini here was more interested in presenting the cultural / ethnological / theological / religious stigma of the era - his usual interest on god and religion is also here, despite text is given few opportunities to breed context in this film. We have also the theme of ancient world VS the new world of logic and the new gods. This is one of the films, like, say, Hertzog's films, that are up to the viewer to comprehend, or a film critics would call a symbolic one. Needless to say one has to like to think while watching this one, not be spoon-fed.

Last but not least, the soundtrack enhances this strongly visual experience a lot. A set of strange but intense folk/ethnic/avant guard/experimental songs make the viewing a unique experience for those who like 'hard' films....

To win the kingdom his uncle took from his father, Jason must steal the golden fleece from the land of barbarians...

When the film opened up and we had the glimpse of a filthy centaur, I was pretty much sold that this film was going to be good, or at least unforgettable. The remainder may not have had as much magic, but it did not disappoint in originality... and cannibalism.

Typically when I think of Italian mythology films, I think of the "sword and sandal" films. This is not one of those. Rather than make the story all romantic and flashy, we get a world that is probably much closer to reality. Assuming that the event told in myth are many, many years BCE, it makes sense to show a much more primitive world than we expect. And in that sense, this film does not disappoint.

"That which man, discovering agriculture, saw in grain that which he understood from seeds that loose their form in the earth to be born again, all that has become the ultimate truth: resurrection. But the ultimate truth is no longer valid. What you see in the grain, in the growth of the seed has lost all meaning for you. Like a discarded memory. In fact, there is no god."

This statement by the Centaur in the beginning already covers the entire story. The consequence, the conflict between the archaic and the rationalized, modern world view becomes concrete from this point on, held only by the action of physical powers. Medea's revenge remains completely uncommented and unweighted. What's left is the act alone which Pasolini lifts out of the row of reason and effect.

Medea, accused of its formalistic aestheticism and set in ancient Greece, is actually a pretty modern film, an experiment in ethnologic cinema. It's a colourful, 'sulfurous' work, devout in the immovable silence of a new invented Colchis in the Middle East, heart-breakingly bewitched and shot with the enthusiasm of a hand-camera; with images of purely emotional tension where words are replaced by gestures, communication replaced by the ritual. The pain and the fear for their existence of the characters have priority and that's why this film finds another level of understanding in the viewer, on a merely emotional base - in a swell of emotions which is experienced through Medea's visionary look, where love and death, regret and revenge follow each other without respite.

It is also an opportunity to meet grand Maria Callas on screen. With her natural dignity and those striking features, her penetrative eyes, her harshness, with the real human psychic trauma and angst inside of her she is the authentic, inspiring muse of the film and impersonates perfectly the complexity of Medea: The archaic world of the Greek peasants where indications of a progressing cultural and social stratification is already perceivable.