If Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema is not the worst film ever made, you can't blame it for not trying….

[Do] not for a moment assume that the story proceeds by any sort of narrative logic. It jumps around in fragmented Godardian non sequiturs that arise from nowhere and trail off into nothing. At the slightest sign of a little consecutive action, Pasolini whisks us off to some unrelated nonincident, or to that wilderness with cloud shadows scurrying across it and another unrelated biblical quotation streaking across the soundtrack. (p. 146)

Nor are you to think that there is anything like meaningful dialogue in Teorema. The advertisements proudly proclaim that though there are only 923 words in the film (it is not clear whether that includes duplicates), it says everything. There is no doubt that it says everything; unfortunately, however, without saying something. Pasolini has declared that the film is largely...