The 1967 filming of Oedipus Rex by Pier Paolo Pasolini was mainly shot in Southern Morocco. The updated prologue and epilogue was filmed in Pasolini’s hometown of Bologna, Italy. Most of the film takes place in the mythic reimagining of ancient Greece, with fantastical costumes and eye watering landscapes. The story begins in fascist Italy of the 1930s and ends in the 1970s - thus weaving some semi autobiographical elements into the work.
It is an extraordinary piece of cinema, sparse and exotic like its landscape. I've carried the memory of that film with me for a long time and have dreamt about visiting Morocco for many years because of it.
In a week's time my wife and I will be there.
For the ancient Greek towns of Corinth and Thebes, Pasolini used the beautiful fortified kasbahs and the spectacular deserts around Ouarzazate.
Most of us know the story. Prophesised at birth, and again as a young man, to murder his father and make love to his mother, Oedipus (Franco Cicci) wanders a beautifully stark and burnished desert in bitterness and fear of his fate.
Pasolini imbues the film with his own style. As mentioned, he claimed it to be semi-autobiographical but said he was far more prone to dreaming of making love to his father than his mother. I wonder what Freud would have made of that?
For those who are unable to follow the film above ( the full version only available in Italian or Spanish on YouTube) there are stills below of key images I found on the net as well as screen dumps I made:
Below Oedipus becomes King, displacing Laius and taking (his mother) Jocasta as his bride.
A view of the High Atlas in the background, as the Shepherd, makes off with Edipo, the infant, abandoned by his parents who feared the prophesy their son would grow up to murder his father and marry his mother.
The child is rescued, named Edipo by King Polybus (Ahmed Belhachmi) and Queen Merope (Alida Valli) of Corinth and raised as their own son.
On the road to Thebes, Edipo meets Laius (Luciano Bartoli), his biological father, and kills him after an argument.
Pasolini's Sphinx (below) is truly impressive, more African "witch doctor" than Greek monster.
Fulfilling the prophecy, Edipo blinds himself and Jocasta commits suicide...
Richard Brody in The New Yorker describes Pasolini's Edipo as "a usurper of petit-bourgeois maternal affections ...born in Fascist Italy...and transported, through the wonder of editing, to ancient Greece."
Morocco supplies the breath taking landscapes, the dazzling light, majestic architecture, ornamentation, the exotic chants, sound effects and eerie silences - that sense of ancient, other-worldliness - that fired my imagination and has inspired us to visit.
Hopefully I will not meet the same fate as Edipo.
All journeys, however, are about discovery of one kind or another, and like all the past journeys I have been fortunate enough to take, I am sure this one will reward me with new insights and experience.
Posted with Blogsy