Movie Review – Medea

Medea (1969)
Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

You hear about Medea’s homeland long before you see her. The film opens with the usurping of King Aeson and Jason, his son, being put in the care of the centaur Chiron. Chiron knows that one day, Jason will travel too far away from Colchis and steal the golden fleece. The film shifts to an almost documentary-like portrayal of an event on Colchis. We observe that the king’s own son is sacrificed, and Princess Medea, whose chief role is as a priestess, oversees the whole affair. It’s disturbing and portends trouble for Jason when he embarks on his eventual mission.

While inspired by the classic play by Euripides, Medea is a Pasolini picture, complete with creative choices less concerned with historical accuracy than creating the image the filmmaker holds in his mind. He establishes a color palette for each locale – Colchis is earth tones, Ioclus is whites & yellows, and Corinth is painted red. The musical score is composed of Tibetan chants, Persian santur, and Balkan choral, representing motifs associated with women or locations. What Pasoini succeeds in implementing these elements is to imbue the ancient past with the uncanny. This is our world, but so many things are still behind the veil of mystification.

Pasolini’s film career was happening parallel to the post-war transformation of Italy. He addresses this more directly in Accattone and Mamma Roma, the films closest to the neo-realist genre. However, Pasolini was always far more concerned with the symbolic, especially Catholic iconography and mythological figures. Capitalism is running rampant despite Mussolini’s defeat, showing that the fascists were still very much in power and continue to be today. Pasolini called this era of consumption “cultural genocide” as he saw Italian people becoming homogenized by mass goods, especially processed foods. 

The era Pasolini depicts here predates much of the ancient Greece we are familiar with in the West. This is not the Greece of Socrates but the world of the mysterious and sacred. Much like the filmmaker’s Oedpius Rex, the landscapes often feel alien, and encounters in the wilderness hold surreal meanings. Pasolini was becoming very interested in the strength of the film image without words. His brilliant satire contains only 923 words but communicates everything it needs to say. Medea continues this trend, keeping the dialogue only to what is required and what cannot be told through the picture. There was never a moment where I didn’t understand how a character felt or their motive. 

A brilliant way that Pasolini presents our loss of belief in the mythic is through Chirone. He appears as a centaur in Jason’s youth, with the head, arms, and torso of a man on a horse’s body. Jason has a vision after returning with the fleece and Medea. Chiron appears to him but takes two forms. One is the centaur, while the other is a human being. Both are Chirone; they make this clear. I read this as Jason matures into adult thinking, which means losing a mythical view of the world. Strange creatures become simply people when we reach a certain age.

What I haven’t talked about yet is Maria Callas and Medea. This was the opera singer’s only acting film role, leaving me wondering why she didn’t do this more. Medea’s story is one of sublimation to another, captor culture. She agrees to help Jason if he takes her away. However, when she begins to experience his culture, she finds it abhorrent and vulgar. In his world, men have total power. Medea is no longer a respected priestess and leader in her community; she is Jason’s wife and the mother to his children. Motherhood reminds Medea of what she is, and that bearing a child connects to speaking with the gods, as she tells her nurse, “I’m still what I once was—a vessel bearing experience, not mine.”

Medea’s final act, which propelled her into infamy, is presented here with a glorious defiance against the destruction of her culture. Submission failed to protect even her. All that remains is to lash out at her captor and make him suffer a similar pain. She takes what Jason loves and destroys it, driven by the fact that it’s made clear all she will be is a vessel for children. Jason plans to marry someone “respectable” in his culture, and Medea understands how she is seen. It’s one of the great dramatic tragedies, and Pasolini handles it beautifully.