The Year of the Cannibals

A loose adaptation of Sophocles’s Antigone, Liliana Cavani’s The Year of the Cannibals is a tale of resistance against totalitarianism. It is set in an unnamed contemporary city, strewn with bodies of dead activists, which the citizens are forbidden to move, touch, or bury. Going against official orders, Antigone (Britt Ekland) is aided by Tiresias (Pierre Clémenti), who helps her entomb some of the dead. Given the beauty of the mise-en-scéne, it is astonishing that Cavani and cinematographer Giulio Albonico shot the film without permission in Milan. Ennio Morricone’s powerful choral compositions complete the film’s perfectly pitched defiance.