Nutsa Kukhianidze and Amaliya Mordvinova in "27 Missing Kisses" [2000 Georgia, UK, Germany, France]

Who wouldn't feel nostalgic watching films about adolescent romances! Director Nana Givievna Dzhordzhadze (credited as Nana Djordjadze) obliges with a drama about a coming-of-age summertime romance set in Soviet-era Georgia, "27 Dakarguli Kotsna" [Eng. Title: 27 Missing Kisses]. The film is also poetic, in a Shakespearian way.

Storyline:
Mickey reminisces his summer of '73 when a girl his own age, fourteen, arrives at his home-town after traversing a live artillery range and ducking close-landing shells. Sibylla had come to spend summer with her aunt, and Mickey instantly falls in love with her. But he's up against a formidable love-rival in the form of his dad, forty one, widower, astronomer, ladies-man, and local heartthrob - Sibylla has had a crush on his father Alexander the moment she set eyes on him. She'd also stepped into a town that's already a cauldron of passion, with every other married man and woman having running affairs of some kind. And there's particular competition among womenfolk for Alexander's affections, one that he's only too willing to share, except for Sibylla whom he diligently sets aside for son Mickey. Nevertheless, rough winds do shake the young ones, and Mickey's allowance of hundred kisses over the summer with Sibylla will fall twenty seven short...

The film strives to be light-hearted and it succeeds most of the time, but there are elements, typical of Eastern European cinema, that constantly threaten to veer this towards darker territory - one of them being Sibylla's exceptional maturity for her age, yet earning for her dead father, and her fascination for someone much older than her. One is also not sure if the rampant promiscuity among the townsfolk (and even among their dead grandparents) is meant as a critique or merely a comedic device. It has several off-beat characterisations too, like the sailor towing his tugboat through town looking for a new sea in which to sail - his sea had apparently disappeared. The film as a whole is richly sensual, poetic, and charming. A sixteen year old Nutsa Kukhianidze (credited as Nuza Kukhianidze) plays Sibylla, her character's disarming candour coupled with her cute looks steal our heart from the outset. Other likeable characters such as Shalva Iashvili who plays young Mickey, and Amaliya Mordvinova who plays the promiscuous Veronica keep us engaged and entertained. Recommended Viewing.

Amazon DVD Link

The Nudity: Nutsa Kukhianidze and Amaliya Mordvinova
As can be expected from such a storyline, the film features several noteworthy scenes of nudity from Nutsa Kukhianidze who plays Sibylla and Amaliya Mordvinova who plays Veronica, a woman having flings with practically every man in town right under the nose of her jealous but inept husband.



Scene Guide:

• A newly arrived Sibylla bathing at her aunt's - she permits young Mickey the pleasure of looking at princess Sibylla from behind the curtain, while being washed by aunt. Sibylla is played by the incredibly cute and pretty Nutsa Kukhianidze.
• No nudity - a sleepless Sibylla goes into the night looking for Mickey's dad Alexander, wearing a barely concealing nightdress.
• No nudity - Veronica rehearses for a ballet performance - played by sultry redhead Amaliya Mordvinova.
• Sibylla confesses her love to Alexander, upon which a jealous Mickey chases her into the bathroom demanding an explanation, and in the process causing her white top to get all wet. She unbuttons her shirt to dry them faster, and duly catches the eye of Alexander and one of the women.
• As one can see, everyone wants to get their hands on Veronica, even when she's with her husband and mother at a cinema. They'd all gathered to watch the current erotic sensation "Emmanuelle".
• Sibylla gives a show of her own from behind the screen after the audience leave. :-)
• Veronica with one of her exceptionally endowed admirers. Later she gets punished by her mum while the drunk husband sits and watches.
• No nudity - Mickey adding to his tally of kisses while Sibylla plucks away leeches he'd stuck on himself. She admits she should be the one that requires leeching.
• Veronica entices Alexander into a corner of the woods during a picnic...
• No nudity - Sibylla wants Alexander only for herself - she gets told off after interrupting one of his sexual encounters.
• More tedious Tom and Jerry-like antics as Veronica's husband catches her with another man (again), and tries vainly to blow them apart.
• Sibylla sneaks into Alexander's bed, hoping to win him over by sacrificing her virginity, and she gets told off yet again. Mickey catches her on her way out of his dad's room.

 



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Dolores Fonzi in "El Campo" [2011 Argentina]

Hernán Belón makes his feature film debut through "El Campo" [Eng. Title: In the Open], an understated drama concerning a couples' commitment to their marriage in contemporary Argentina.

Storyline:
City couple Santiago and Elisa move to the countryside with their toddler Mathilda - the move was Santiago's cherished dream. They are in love, and Elisa readily agrees to Santiago's proposal of relocation. But while Santiago is enjoying the transition and enthusiastically adapting to life in the country, the change in environment takes Elisa out of her comfort zone, which will challenge their hitherto solid relationship...

The austere, simple but elegant film is largely a character study of two individuals, their marriage, and family. It is also about communication and adaptation for the sake of a larger good. I'm not sure to what extent director Belón's efforts in creating a seemingly spooky or alien atmosphere really helps the narrative, but Dolores Fonzi and Leonardo Sbaraglia look good together in the film, and it is their chemistry and refined performance as Elisa and Santiago respectively that propels the drama. It is for that reason that this is Recommended Viewing.

 

The Nudity: Dolores Fonzi and Leonardo Sbaraglia
They're brief scenes that happen during some sex scenes - nothing explicit, but passionate all the same.




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"Dillinger is Dead", but Alienation, Never as Alive [1969 Italy]

Marco Ferreri, the beguiling and provocative anarchist of Italian cinema, is also one of the most original and philosophical film makers that his country has ever produced. He could be defined as a direct legacy to Italian Neorealism. While his works, like contemporaries Antonioni, Pasolini, and Fellini, are loaded with social satire and commentary, Ferreri was undoubtedly the more aggressive of the lot in challenging the status quo, be it left wing or right wing politics, modernism or traditionalism, and orthodoxy or secularism - his films will pick on practically anyone and everyone, using absurd, outrageous, and often morbid humour. Having said that, it was Ferreri's fascination for Antonioni's work that got him into film making. He was a producer before becoming a director - even helping produce Antonioni's first feature film. Of course, Ferreri is a genius in his own right and has left us a great body of unforgettable work that the world of cinema would be much poorer without. His most famous and notorious film is nevertheless "La Grande Bouffe", but I'll touch on that at a later time.

Among the various things I admire in Marco Ferreri is his extraordinary flair when it came to set detail - little things, like props, design and lighting, his compositions, and the way in which he uses them. They become embedded within the film's memory, and return to haunt you every time you remember it. Take for instance one such prop that makes an ominous appearance in what many like me consider to be Ferreri's finest masterpiece, "Dillinger è Morto" [Eng. Title: Dillinger is Dead], which will also be the first of a life-long collaboration with one of the greatest actors in European cinema, Michel Piccoli.

Storyline:
Glauco is an industrial designer, but has fallen out of love for his profession designing gas masks for a high-tech company. He returns home late one evening, only to be invited by a cold dinner on the table and a sleepy wife who wants to be left alone. Sleepless and bored, Glauco cooks for himself a gourmet meal, and starts to rummage in his cellar, until he discovers to his delight a rusty pistol wrapped up in an old issue of Chicago Times Tribune. "Clear up Dillinger Mystery", the headline shrieks. He proceeds to clean and also restore the gun to working order, most of which is filmed in real-time. He even playfully paints it red and applies white polka dots. In between, he goes upstairs to seduce live-in maid Sabine. But the gun, brought back to life, has only one purpose - to be used. And used it shall be in the most illogical of circumstances...

To describe the film as steeped in symbolism with different layers of interpretation is stating the obvious. What will not be obvious for many younger viewers however is the political climate under which the film was made. The year of 1968 is looked upon by some in Europe as a year of revolution - marked by numerous protests involving youth, workers, and poltical activists of various hues, for different reasons. This film is Ferreri's own expression of disillusionment and anger at the manner in which the world subsequently  returned to status-quo. It talks of its disillusionment without as much as uttering a word - there is very little dialogue in the film as we watch, transfixed, an insomniac keeping himself busy through the night with a child-like demeanour, and indulging in violence with hardly any emotion or hesitation - it's a message nothing short of a war-cry. But, this is also a film that is made with oodles of wit and charm, and some of the scenes are positively hilarious. It is the most lively cinematic interpretation of disillusionment and alienation that I could think of. The title, as you may have guessed, not only alludes to the death of the eponymous criminal in the old newspaper article, but also of Glauco's machismo.

As for the meticulous production itself, this is Ferreri at his very best. His decision to cast Michel Piccoli in the lead character role, and who appears in almost every frame of the film, must surely be a master stroke - Piccoli is brilliant throughout and never disappoints. I feel the character he plays here may have even inspired a later film, Themroc. Of the two ladies in the film, Annie Girardot was already a renowned actress in France - she plays the banal housemaid Sabine, while the sleepy wife is played by a little known Anita Pallenberg - we'll nevertheless see more of her in a Nicolas Roeg film that would come out the following year (Performance), which I too shall revisit pretty soon. The soundtrack is thoughtfully put together by Ferreri-regular Teo Usuelli. This, combined with the masterful editing completes Ferreri's vision in making what is arguably his finest film. Needless to say, this classic is Highly Recommended Viewing..!

 

Amazon NTSC DVD Link

About the Criterion DVD:
This is a gem of a release from Criterion, for it not only contains a beautifully restored print of the film, but also some priceless extras like interviews with Michel Piccoli, and the insightful film historian Adriano Aprà. There is also an essay booklet accompanying the DVD. Another reason to own this DVD is the sumptuous cover art - I don't normally write about these, but this one is exceptionally well designed and worthy of mention.

 

The Nudity: Anita Pallenberg, Annie Girardot, and Carla Petrillo
The film features some elegant nudity, tame by today's standards, but sensuous all the same. They are also naughty and funny.



Scene Guide:

• Ginette is too tired and wants to let her be for the night. She asks hubby Glauco for  sleeping pills and her hot water bottle. Dozy Ginette is played by a yet-to-be-widely-known Annete Pallenberg.
• A bored Glauco passes by live-in maid Sabine's room to catch her dancing in a bodystocking to her favourite Dino pop-tune. Sabine is played by veteran French actress Annie Girardot. Nice..! :-)
• A brief montage of home camera footage captured by Glauco features a sexy woman, a family friend and possible mistress of Glauco (it is not made clear in the film), and I presume the mysterious lady is played by Carla Petrillo.
• Glauco, bored still, goes back to his room to play with his (aherm!) pet snake, and sleeping wife Ginette.
• A frustrated Glauco bribes Sabine for some action, but after some 'sweet moments', she too is feeling tired! :-)

 


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Juana Acosta and others in "A Golpes" [2005 Spain]

I haven't seen other films by Juan Vicente Córdoba, but if any of them were in the same league as his 2005 drama, "A Golpes" [Eng. Title: By Force], I wouldn't be surprised. This is about suburban gangs - male and female, trying to raise themselves out of poverty through crime, with an aim to use its proceeds to chase their respective dreams.

I'll spare you the storyline - let's say it is a drama centred around five young women - friends, their love lives, their squabbles, and one of the women's quest for boxing glory. Assorted characters are inserted along the way to propel their story, and everyone's fate is sorted out quite neatly and predictably towards the end.

I watched this film again, hoping to find something worthwhile to write about for my second review, but apart from the performance of Natalia Verbeke who plays aspiring boxer María 'Coco' Gómez, there is very little that could keep me involved in the film, and even the smattering of nudity and sex scenes fail to raise this above mediocrity. This, I'm afraid is one of those rather forgettable films occasionally churned out from Spain.

Amazon DVD Link

 

The Nudity: Natalia Verbeke, Daniel Guzmán, Juana Acosta, Bárbara Pérez de Lema, Susana Martin, and María Reyes Arias



Scene Guide:

• There is no nudity from Natalia Verbeke save a brief distant upskirt, but she gives a decent enough performance and it would be a shame not to include her in the compilation. Here, her character María cuddles-up to one-time boyfriend and fellow boxer Fran in the car before he embarks on a ram-raid - all in a day's work.
• With police hot on his heels, Fran persuades María's friend to pretend she's his lover. But Juanita seems to resist Fran's moves only briefly. Once the police leave, they decide to 'jump in' for a full-on sex session. Fran is played by a hands-on Daniel Guzmán, and Juanita, by a rather enthusiastic Juana Acosta.
• Fran and Juanita move into his parent's house. Here, she tries to persuade him to find them a place of their own.
• Fran's younger brother is shaping up as a gangster already - he wants to try out some curb-crawling girls (or even transsexuals) after being promised a blow-job. The girls are played by Bárbara Pérez de Lema, and Susana Martin. Sorry - not sure which one has her tits out though.
• Lola, one among the five all-girl friends, starts dating María's coach Mariano. Lola is played by María Reyes Arias.

 



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Nellie Benner in "Vlees" [2010 Netherlands]

From what I've seen so far, films by Victor Nieuwenhuijs and Maartje Seyferth are largely hit-and-miss, and experimental. Their more recent film however, the suggestively titled "Vlees" [Eng. Title: Meat] makes a sincere attempt to work with a structured screenplay, and sets up a very original drama if one can care to pay close attention to it.

Storyline:
Made up of two halves and told in parallel narrative, we follow two middle-aged characters - a butcher, and a police detective, with strikingly similar features (played by the same actor Titus Muizelaar). While the detective wants to end his relationship with girlfriend Sonja, the married butcher is seen trying to seduce nubile shop assistant Roxy, while his wife Tinie, also an employee, openly has sexual relations with the shop's owner - both the protagonists are going through a crisis of some sort. The butcher is found dead one morning, and the suspicion falls on Roxy, who was the last one seen with him the night before - yes, the butcher succeeds in his seduction efforts in one of the memorable scenes of the film. Roxy's case isn't helped by the fact that she and her erstwhile boyfriend are also part of a militant group against the killing of animals. And she has a habit of capturing things on her video camera, like prying on the butcher.

What starts off as a murder mystery turns into a psychological drama about revenge, guilt, and redemption. To be honest, it required more than a viewing for me to make sense of the numerous seemingly pointless scenes and plot devices. This is partly because some of the scenes are purely imagined, portraying a character's frame of mind, and not all of them use conventional cinematic language to separate reality from fantasy. I won't bother analysing them here, but it will help if you consider certain facts. The butcher's state of mind - his passive reaction in seeing his wife routinely taken upstairs for sex by their boss. And for all the promise of giving Roxy the orgasm of her life, the sex that the butcher ends up having with her is hurried, unimaginative, and totally selfish. Why does the detective cut his hair to make himself look like the dead butcher. What does Roxy see in the butcher that keeps her approaching him despite his tasteless remarks. Her relationship with her Turkish boyfriend appears one-sided. She willingly accompanies boys at the night club in almost total abandon. She also doesn't seem to care too much about her alleged beliefs vis-à-vis animal cruelty, eating a live bug as breakfast in one scene. And not least the detective who is told that he's been taken off the case and investigated for manslaughter.

To summarise, there's a lot going on in the film that paints a more complex picture than a sordid murder mystery or a study in sexual depravity. It may contain several unpleasant scenes like urination, rape, and close-ups of raw meat and naked human flesh, but it is a surprisingly original story that can be interpreted in different ways. The performances by the main cast are very good, particularly Titus Muizelaar who plays both the butcher and the detective. And the incredibly beautiful Nellie Benner as the passive, sensual, and wanton Roxy makes her altogether vulnerable character disturbingly erotic. With competent cinematography, writing, and editing, this film is well produced, and a very worthy exercise on the whole - Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon.de DVD Link
English Subtitle

 

The Nudity:
As the title would suggest, the film features intermittent scenes of nudity, acts of sex, and sexual fetish throughout. Mercifully, it is made bearable by the extremely easy on the eye Nellie Benners, who plays the character of Roxy. Titus Muizelaar as the butcher/detective also appears in the nude - quite bold of him to do so, and there is some brief nudity from Wilma Bakker who plays the butcher's wife Tinie.



Scene Guide:

• Husband and wife intimacy during work - the butcher is invited into the meat vault by wife Tinie, which is watched and filmed by shop assistant Roxy. The butcher is played by Titus Muizelaar, and Tinie by Wilma Bakker.
• No nudity - but a very interesting scene - of the butcher 'seducing' Roxy in the coarsest manner imaginable (if you really need to know, much of the talk is about his skill in getting little girls wet), but rather than avoiding him, she keeps getting in his way, almost wanting to hear his unromantic words - theirs is a different relationship for sure. Roxy is played by the gorgeous Nellie Benner. She appears more mature and sensual here than her earlier outing with the same directors in Crepuscule, I have the DVD for that film as well, and will write about it on another occasion.
• After a party, Roxy follows the butcher into the showers, and we're witness to some grotesque, non-erotic sex between the two. This is followed by Roxy urinating on the butcher while filming him. It doesn't appear as though he expected her to do that, but he takes the second shower with passivity regardless..! :)
• After this encounter, Roxy heads to a night club where she's predictably approached by a group of guys who take her on a car ride. Disturbingly, these scenes of groping must be the most titillating in the entire film - partly because we see Roxy more or less enjoying all the attention. She is braless and knickerless, and doesn't seem too eager to protect her modesty either.
• It culminates in an 'ambiguous' rape scene after the guys pin Roxy to the ground and spread her legs.
• A brief scene of Roxy in the bath...
• Roxy filming her sleeping boyfriend. He wakes up and proceeds to have rough sex with her after some tender words. When she later asks him if he loves her, he doesn't respond. The scene is truncated as I found some parts unnecessary.
• The detective (with a new haircut, but very little else) lies on top of the crime scene markings to slash himself while Roxy watches. I won't give away too much information - merely pointing out that this an imagined scene.