By Kiša Lala
Production Still, Rape of the Sabine Women, Marilisa on the Floor Photo by Eve Sussman & Ricoh Gerbl, Courtesy of Eve Sussman and Rufus Corporation
Eve Sussman’s film Rape of the Sabine Women is an operatic vehicle set in five locations – the first two segments shot at Pergamon Museum and Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, with its stylized treatment of austerely dressed men parading within the high-design decor, has the appearance of a Gucci commercial; these are followed by scenes shot in the Athens meat market, then, a modernist summer house, and finally the Herodion Theatre in Athens, where all the sophistication of the former scenes collapse, and the denouement, driven by the film’s title, takes place.
The theme is taken from the story of the founding of ancient Rome, where the men of Rome steal the women from the neighbouring Sabine tribe – here rape has the connotation of a kidnapping or an abduction, as represented in many of the renaissance paintings, originating from the Latin word rapere from which rapt or rapture is derived.
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