Medea

Full of eccentric fantasy and real passion, Pasolini's imaginative recreation of Euripides' play shifts the tragedy away from the prodigious revenge plotted by the mythical sorceress to the loss of her mystical homeland. Among the stark, abstruse tableaux stands a splendour crystallised inthe magnificent face of opera diva Maria Callas as Medea, whose fiery emotions culminate in her bitter renunciation ofthe world replete with betrayal and political ambition. Through poetic, desirous explorations of landscape and ritual, Pasolini shapes a biting allegory for the menacing influence of Western civilisation on the Third World.