The Cannibals

Made directly after Galileo, whose strengths Cavani enlarges and develops, this also postulates a primacy of human and emotional response over the nihilism of The Night Porter (made four years later). In this modern day reworking of Antigone, Cavani's striking visual sense illuminates her subject sufficiently to overcome doubts about some of the '60s conceits. Where she manages to evoke her Fascist state as exceptionally normal, the film works exceptionally well; where she obsessively indulges in hyperbolic scenes of Fascist ritual, it all but scuttles itself.