A radically streamlined and elliptically simple film, Teorema remains one of Pasolini’s most mysterious works. The story of a sexually magnetic stranger, played by a mesmerizing Terence Stamp, who methodically disrupts the well-ordered household of a wealthy Milanese industrialist, Teorema’s hidden tensions are brought to the surface with a shocking suddenness that remains as inexplicable as it is inevitable. Meant as a merciless savaging of the bourgeoisie, Teorema features a pair of well-known Italian actors as the subjects of its critique—Massimo Girotti and Silvana Mangano as husband and wife— as foils to the alluring stranger, who may be angel or demon, or something else entirely.