2. Teorema (1968)

What? — The name itself hints at the fact that the narrative is a proposition of sorts, a drastic retooling of the Christian allegory that adds moral degradation, a dual God/Devil figure and homosexual desire to the mix.

An unexplained, almost angelic visitor (Terence Stamp) crashes the crib of a beautiful, seemingly perfect bourgeois family. One by one, from the austere maid all the way up to the businessman father, the mysterious guest seduces and beds each member of the household before deserting them just as abruptly as he entered their lives.

Having all fallen under his charms, each family member privately confesses to the God-like figure that he's awakened their latent beings true passions and desires to which they were oblivious, and shattered previous notions of self.

Religious allusions run aplenty in Teorema, especially once post-partum blues hit the family hard. Left to their own devices, hoping to rebuild their identities from scratch, each member is profoundly affected by the loss of their divine "savior." Overwhelmed with passion and blinded by the stranger's diabolical gaze (or is it his crotch, which he always offers up in full view by spreading his legs wide open?), the bourgeois family experience individual moments of rapture. The maid miraculously floats in mid-air, the artist son urinates on his canvas in rejection of conventional aesthetic concerns and the father picks up hustlers and undresses down to his birthday suit at a bustling train station. With all of this and more, Teorema has Christian allegory written all over it.

Why? — As one might expect, the combination of the story of Christ with a myriad of representations of rebellious sexual awakenings didn't result in unanimous letters of praise from religious bodies. In fact, it is the association made between the mysterious stranger and the divine, suggesting that the natural world itself is sacred and that religion is not a necessary means to attaining a state of holiness, that enraged the Catholic Church (that, plus all the aforementioned crotch shots and sexual content.)

Pasolini, a homosexual Marxist who sought to shake up the foundation of Italian society with his radical oeuvre, was already a well-known unorthodox poet and writer before he ventured into the film realm. His films were often shrewd political parables that put forward caustic critiques of class systems and established power structures. But pigeonholing him as nothing more than a political filmmaker would be committing a grave injustice to this brilliant visual master, whose acute and harsh films presented morally bankrupt characters stripped of their bourgeois shells and left to battle their inner demons.

Teorema's theorem, that sexual passion can't be tamed by boundaries of any kind, and that confining oneself to a social class will deal a more crushing blow to the individuals who ultimately make this self-discovery, is a profound universal message that still resonates with contemporary audiences. The film scored second place on Xavier-Daniel's list, who chose it "for its impact on teenage audiences, who were more hesitant to acknowledge and express their feelings back then."

Almost Made the Cut: Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971)

The famous gay Italian Neorealist adapted a Thomas Mann novel about an elderly composer on a much-needed vacation in Venice, who becomes completely enamored with a young Polish boy. As his infatuation for the fetching lad escalates to downright obsession, he is hit with a deadly bout of cholera that weakens him to the point of physical decay just like his unrequited attraction. This may seem quite crude and literally skin-deep, but Visconti brings out a delicately nuanced performance from his lead. Seeing the putrefying artist wallow in a state of psychological, emotional and physical distress in a slow-paced narrative isn't exactly what the MTV-fed Generation Y had ordered, but it's still an engrossing contemplation on the unattainable beauty of art.

Next - The Rocky Horror Picture Show

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