Medea is a Greek woman endowed with magical powers. She sees the world mythologically, as a never-ending cycle that can only be broken by divine will. Meanwhile, her husband Jason is rational – Medea helped him find the golden fleece, only to be rejected by him years later. Their worlds collide, where the wrath of the sorceress will cover the parched earth like a purple mantle. “I am overcome by evil, and I realise what evil I am about to do, but my passion controls my plans,” Medea says as her hatred becomes destructive.

This film is part of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s mythological cycle and allows opera singer Maria Callas to shine in the great Syrian expanses. Medea was her only role in a film, but the opera diva does not sing! As in almost all of the director’s films, here too he provokes and looks at the tension between myth and rationality. With this film, Pasolini has created a timeless visual poem of Euripides’ play of the same name that reassesses the protagonist’s motives for revenge, while weaving in Italian political corruption and social criticism of his peers.