Arquivo

The film begins in a small city in the north of Italy. In a field, together with some of her friends, a mother breastfeeds her baby; however, for a brief instant, panic seizes her in thought. At home, the father of the boy fears that the baby will take his place in the life and in the heart of the mother. At night, after a party, the parents are in one room, with the boy fast asleep in another. The father wakes up, goes into the next room, and tries to strangle the baby. The setting is now Ancient Greece, originally the scene of Sophocles’ tragedy where the Oracle of Delphos prophecies that if Laius, King of Thebes, has a son, he will kill the father. The Greek tragedy ends with the assassination of Laius, the suicide of Jocasta, his wife and mother-mistress of Oedipus, who puts out his own eyes. To Pasolini, the blindness of Oedipus symbolized the incapacity of contemporary man to see and to understand the facts that have led him to dramatic situations.