Medea
Tags: tragedy, cult, murder, romantic

Plot synopsis:
The first half sums up the story of Jason and the Argonauts as they travel to Medea's barbarian land in search of the golden fleece. In fitting with the soundtrack (which features Iranian classic music, Japanese traditional music and other folklore pieces), Pasolini depicts Medea's people as a tribal people who perform rituals and sacrifices to secure their harvests. Their costumes and dances are based on those of Eastern European Mummers such as the Romanian Calusari ceremonies and their counterparts in the Balkans.
A young man is offered up as a human sacrifice and his organs and blood are sprinkled over the crops in a ritual sparagmos. The victim is bound to a wooden structure and killed and dismembered, and the villagers fertilize crops with his body and blood.
Meanwhile, Jason and his comrades have arrived and are shown pillaging the locals. Medea awakens her brother Absyrtus to help her steal the Golden Fleece, which they then deliver to Jason. The Argonauts hastily depart from Colchis, with horsemen from her village in hot pursuit. When the Colchians begin closing in, Medea kills her brother and dismembers his body, in a manner similar to the sacrificial victim of the sparagmos ritual earlier. Her father's men are then forced to halt and retrieve the scattered pieces of his son's body, enabling Jason and Medea to escape.
When they return to Jason's homeland as husband and wife, Medea is stripped of her ornate barbarian garb and dressed in the garments of a traditional Greek housewife. The film generally follows the plot of the play by Euripides from this point onward, though it takes some liberties with the chronology of events.
Jason has two sons by Medea, but he later decides to opt out of his union with her in favor of a marriage to the Corinthian princess Glauce. Enraged, Medea plots revenge against Jason and his new bride and sends Glauce a robe bewitched with magic herbs.
Here Pasolini introduces two versions of the destruction of Glauce and her father. The first follows the traditional legend and is possibly a vision of how Medea would like Glauce to die, as her face is superimposed over several shots. When the princess puts on the robe, the garment catches fire and burns her alive, along with her father Creon, who attempts to douse the flames.
The second version Glauce put on the robe that Medea wore when she served as High Priestess. Glauce, looking in the mirror, cries out and runs to the walls and leaps to her death. Her father follows her, and jumps to his death also.
Medea then proceeds to kill her own sons by Jason and sets fire to their house. She refuses to give Jason the bodies of their children for burial. Instead she keeps them from him, while he is held back by the fire she has lit, telling him that nothing can be done anymore.

Review: I first saw Medea in college and was highly critical of it, finding it disappointing on almost all counts: terrible sound editing, cheap film stock, over bright lighting, bizarre, amateurish acting styles, inadequately edited, etc.
Did someone get the wrong reel into the house?Another ten years went by before I watched it again and after the second viewing, found myself emotionally drained, my jaw on the floor with the realization that I'd just finished a film that alternately horrified, fascinated and astonished me.Medea is a grim, violent, film, minimally processed which only adds to its gruesome, wild rawness.
This is Pasolini's Medea, not Euripedes and it is not easy viewing.
Medea doesn't easily compare to films of any other style or genre; not even with some of Pasolini's other work.
Granted, not everyone wants that experience.As Medea, Callas is simply amazing.
The more I watch this film (which is probably several times a year for well over a decade), the more amazed I am by her performance in it.
I've come to be riveted to her painfully expressive mask as she completely inhabits this character who is, quite literally, capable of everything (yes - everything is the right word here).Where I was once critical of the lighting, I've grown up to realize what Pasolini did; why he chose to film at the times of day he chose, and the resulting, fascinatingly brutal and surreal luminosity that bathes the entire film and the almost palpable sense of its visual texture.
The landscapes Pasolini chose to film in are as brutal and as vital as the characters of the tale.
There is a bit of conventional Medea in the latter stages of the film, but most of it is filmed in hugely elliptical swathes, so the concrete despair and drama all but evaporate in the air.It is a marvelously flawed piece to be sure, an appealing quality to me; that is not the same as being sloppy as a result of ignorance, on the contrary it shows an openness to imperfection, adventure and discovery.
A significant point behind the exercise, revealed in the opening scene where the centaur lectures a young Jason on the purpose of myth, is that we have forgotten what is vital in the stories we tell, the rituals we enact.
Though it takes place in strange, different times, a film like Ben Hur is filmed as static affirmation of visual and narrative norms; never more apparent than in the scenes with Jesus, presenting the passions in a stagy, painterly way we associate as real because the same images have been repeated for so long—say, the Crucifixion.
We see the mundaneness of the sacred, and not the opposite which is the spiritual essence—if we can't see transience in the traffic of Saturday night party-goers and can only read it from a Zen book, we've wasted our time.It seems this was in part why Pasolini undertook his Gospel film in the first place, show a world we know from fixed images with a real gravity that will invigorate a sense of intense, spiritual curiosity—the storylessons were the same, what changed was the air around the story.This is carried here.
The point is that myth (by extension: the narrative and cinematic ritual) can only matter, be truly ecstatic, when it is really 'real' (not the same as realistic), which is to say something can only be vital when it escapes the routine of mind, and becomes 'alive' in the moment of watching.
But within this world, Pasolini creates an experience of intense 'being there'—in his camera, in his chosen places and fabrics, in the textures of light, it feels like we are present.
Oh it is still an abstract ritual, but one that has sense, and that sense is carried entirely in the air of the film, not in any spoken conflict.Further within the ritual, we have Medea's own magical timeflow of conflicting urges and dreams, channeled by Callas channeling her own anxieties with fame and husband, inseparable from all else.
In the sequence in which we are introduced to Medea, we witness the mesmeric nature of a human sacrifice, which changes from the ecstatic to the horrific within the same sequence.
Filmed with a mixture of professional and non-professional actors, Medea is a challenging and refreshing change from the usual, as it builds up to a frightening climax in an unconventional way.
This version of Medea, overall quite excellent, captures interesting aspects of the original piece.
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.
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..
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.
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.....
'Medea' is the prove that film can, or might, be art.
In a gallant way.Pasolini's MEDEA deserves, on a scale from 1 to 10, a 1001.This film, even if the viewer MIGHT not be completely satisfied after watching this picture (rumour has it that there actually are 4 to 6 of them somewhere on our planet), will linger on in the mind forever.
Having cinematographer Guarnieri, designer Ferretti and costume designer Tosi in your team means one knows that only the best were good enough.There are others though, the nameless of the production team must have done an impossible good job to get this movie shot in those sensational but extremely difficult places.And then of course, there is Callas.No no, you Filistines, La Divina is not singing here.
She did use her bottomless brown eyes and enormous presence for MEDEA though.Many claim that MATTHEW'S PASSION is the ultimate PASOLINI Movie.
They might be right; that one is as beautiful and as haunting as MEDEA.But MEDEA has the truly unique locations.And can boast that it has Maria Callas in her only movie-role....
Being familiar with the story and Maria Callas, on the opera stage unrivalled as a singing-actress, were my main interests into watching Medea, having never seen a Passolini film before.
I don't think Medea is a flawless film, some of the anachronisms did go over my head, the film due to some sluggish pacing can get dull at times, the centaur's monologue- though much of Medea is dialogue-free- goes on forever and gets tedious quickly and the way Jason's role is written and performed is too simplistic and rather amateurish.
However, I did think it looked great, the locations are really unique and beautiful to look at and the cinematography gives a grim and surreal feel that actually suits the story.
The main merit of Medea is Maria Callas' titular role performance, like she did on the opera stage with an intelligent, sensual and quite menacing presence she completely dominates every scene she appears in and is incredibly magnetic.
Overall, more a film I appreciate but worth watching for Callas, the visuals and the score.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" describes Medea, whose hubris and amour fou for the bold and beautiful Jason leads to her downfall.
The primitive settings and human sacrifice of Medea's people helped to establish her dark, powerful and exotic barbarian character.
It's a shame that this movie will most likely attract an audience that looks it up for the novelty-value of seeing La Divina Callas 'play' at movie-actress.
Add to this one of Pasolini's most assuredly directed films, and stunning scenery (the locations indicated by the original play), and it seems as though you had never even heard about the play (let alone seen or read it).
I love Pasolini, and Medea is easily the weakest of his works that I've seen.
It retains most of Pasolini's beautiful settings, but the script is a poor adaptation of Euripides' play.
The film's as slow as they come, and to me it seemed like a way to cover up the lack of ideas.
Maria Callas is excellent as Medea, but she really doesn't have that much screen time, if you measure it.
Most of the film is made up of people performing weird rituals, and the characters of Jason and Medea don't do all that much.
I don't like Pasolini's interpretation of Jason as a chauvanist, egotistical jerk.
Medea's depth is sapped, as well, and her motivation in the film is sketchy at best.
Medea, accused of its formalistic aestheticism and set in ancient Greece, is actually a pretty modern film, an experiment in ethnologic cinema.
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.
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..
Pasolini's visual and musical work about the myth  its ambiguity, its deep powers  creates the background in which Maria Callas realizes her masterpiece of acting.
Pasolini's stark, primitive take on MEDEA offers a callous Callas a captivating avant-garde music backdrop..
Maria Callas is both stoic and expressive as Pasolini's Medea, while Jason is depicted as playfully self-obsessed.
this film sticks in my mind as one of the greatest by far i've ever seen, for the drive and weirdity is beyond estimation; most peculiar, plus divinely inspired and escatalogically rendered, so potent grand!the section where medea doubles the murder in two different ways flipt me, and so drove me crazy, and caused the most excited response to a movie i've encountered.
including those devastating images from ikuru while the old bureaucrat is snubbed and proclaims no time for anger, and the harp of burma when the musician soldier finds the bodies on the beach, and thru the glass darkly when the daughter in the boat wrecked on the shore resigns in the flash it's terrible to understand your own insanity; those can't quite measure up, tho all those films are so brutally exquisite, carrying image and emotion and realization solid.when pasolini hits that scene again, i rose out of my seat and yelled!.
Jason needs Medea, repository of occult knowledge and superstitious practise, to help establish his rule; when he gets there, she is side-lined, and takes a terrible revenge.
The storytelling here is oblique and elliptical, full of gorgeous images, sensual locations and sounds the like of which human ears rarely get to hear, full of ululations and Dionysian frenzy.The most intriguing segments involve Jason's relationship with his mentor, the centaur, who appeared in his childhood as a horse-man and his adulthood in normal human form, but the horse-form remains as a mythic trace once childhood is departed.The athlete Pasolini casts as Jason does well, physically scrumptious as he is and with the requisite banal arrogance; the casting of Maria Callas as Medea is more problematic - she's so obviously the product of the higher echelons of civilised culture that it is impossible to see her as a primitive force - her presence threatens to turn the film into a jaded millionairess' arty home movie.
the only role in a film of Maria Callas.
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.
Knock yourself out, if you like movies with a glacial pace, precious little plot, cryptic dialogue, idiotic costumes, and camera work worthy of (maybe) a high school project.
Possibly good for making you vow to never watch a Pasolini film again.
other then the two main actors who play Jason and Medea made no other movies.
The answer is that while 300 played out like a cartoon, Medea was firmly grounded in a reality that may seem foreign to modern sensibilities but nonetheless plausible.Let's take Jason's voyage.
Medea's hacking her brother to pieces to slow down her pursuers made sense in view of the sacrificial ceremony in the earlier part of the film.
Pier must have been a bit tame with this considering his later work.Anyway, I just had to say that Maria Callas is gorgeous in this film.If you needed proof that intense, emotional women are intoxicating, then this shows it.
It's worth watching the film just to see her, and the photography that makes that so captivating.Pier is a new discovery for me.
Now that I think about it, this sense of repression is present in other Pasolini films too.It is also about how the repression breaks into a revolt.
Pasolini's MEDEA, boosting the household name Maria Callas' one-off celluloid bash, mesmerically sinks its teeth into the fecund soil of ancient Greek myth, story-wise, it welds together Jason and the Argonauts' quest of golden fleece with the play of Euripides, and takes liberty with Pasolini's trenchant interpretation about possession, betrayal and revenge.
Exhibiting the sui-generis topography of Göreme in Turkey's Cappadocia Region, an immemorial mountainous area grandly preserved with its ancient architecture (caves, churches etc.) and scraggy outlook, the place itself is a marvel to behold, nevertheless, Pasolini makes great play of his unfettered imagination to limn the mythical tribe of Medea (Callas), a pageantry of madcap costumes and primitive implements, topping off by a head-rolling, blood-drinking human-sacrifice ritual in supplication of harvest, savagery and sanctity, like conjoined twins, forever mediating mankind's self-seeking turpitude.
Medea feels like one of Pier Pasolini's more obscure and lesser known works.
The film explores fascinating themes like jealousy, betrayal, relationships, etc.
Especially for a 1969 audience (which is the film I saw of the story), seeing a woman with that much drive and ability to excel probably felt invigorating.
I think this is where the story flips when this unfair misunderstanding makes things too unbearable for Medea.
As she is tossed aside for another wife for Jason, she's seen as a tool or a means to an end and this is where I think, she takes it too far and removes herself from the title of "heroin."Her almost ruthless nature unravels when she kills her own children which is not only extreme but there is fundamentally something psychopathic when we imagine a mother killing her own child for selfish reasons.
Maybe he was attempting to suggest women will be the death of us if they are not "kept in check." Honestly I would like to think the first option but knowing Pasolini's other works and his seeming disregard for many good qualities of humanity in his films, I don't know how much I'd bet on it.
When Jason arrives in Kolchis, he meets Medea who immediately falls in love with him and helps him to get the Golden Fleece.
She kills her children, minces Jason's father and poisons Glauke's children.However, Pasolini would not be Pasolini if he would just film an ancient Greek myth that belongs since centuries to the common knowledge of any learned European.
Pasolini himself wrote: "The film deals with the conflict between the old religion and the atheist modern world".
By changing not only the original meaning of the Medea-parable, but by transferring the area of the play to the black continent, Pasolini also gave as a further interpretation of the Medea-parable the abyss between the Third World and the colonialist West..
"Medea" reflects (some of) Pasolini's ideas about religion.
We, the viewers, are looking at the kind of ancient cultures - far older, even, than Euripides' own time period - whose practices, beliefs and rites may have inspired the various elements behind the Medea legend.
(Watch out for the scene where the young Medea kills and then dismembers her brother : it's like watching a lioness systematically destroy her prey.) The actor playing Jason seemed inferior in talent, although he did succeed in capturing something of the infuriating opportunism and myopia of the character.