| Title | La bella e la bestia | |
| Origin | Italy, 1977 | |
| Genre | Erotic: Decamerotica | |
| Director | Luigi Russo | |
| Starring | Lisbeth Hummel, Brigitte Petronio | |
| Music | Piero Umiliani | |
| Blurb | - |
From Italy comes this collection of four short sensual stories. I know almost nothing about the director Luigi Russo. The only other work of his I've seen is Blue Island, a lightweight and extremely silly take on the Blue Lagoon theme which did not lead me to expect anything special from this title.
These period dramas could be loosely termed "Decamerotica", but it's not a very accurate term. It brings to mind the sort of words used in no other circumstances, such as "buxom" and "ribald". Russo does not favour "buxom" but rather the opposite - slim, delicate, pert and youthful blondes. As for ribaldry, the nearest he comes to cracking a joke is a schoolmaster with a nervous tic. And woe betide any boy who laughs!
The common theme is masochism. But that need not mean commonplace images of leather-clad dominatrices wielding whips. Things are much more subtle, with the purest pleasure coming from the self-inflicted torture of the mind rather than the body. And though the focus may at first be on an individual sufferer, an atmosphere builds where every single character seems to live and breathe their own gentle perversion. Events unfold so tantalisingly slowly that watching is a whole new delicious kind of torture all of its own.
Against expectations this turned out to be a truly first-rate film that can be enjoyed many times in many different ways. In a genre that rarely produces more than unappetising tripe, in a very distinctive style Luigi Russo has served up a sumptuous and delicious banquet of sensuality and erotica.
La Schiava The Queen sends for the King's harem of naked slavegirls.
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(2:27 min, 624 x 368, 23.3MB)
The first story is set in late mediaeval times. Beginning conventionally enough, the camera finds Tsar Vladimir of Russia as he surveys his castle from the battlements, then retires to the intimacy of his harem.
Tonight the King anticipates the conquest of the most beautiful slavegirl ever to grace his chambers. Yet insolently, majestically, the woman (Lisbeth Hummel) defies him! Bewitched, the King begs her to let him offer her anything her heart desires. Condescending to accept, the slave wills that she be crowned his Queen for a single day.
In a compelling sequence of vignettes the Queen occupies the throneroom and issues a series of decrees that bring about the exquisite abasement and ruination of every last person involved.
Russo here lays out his style of building atmosphere with attractive soft-focus photography and light ethereal music. He glories in nudity for its own sake. And as much nudity as it takes, a single woman might be enough, or a whole roomful. But he does not need (or want) to depict explicit sex. The pleasure is in the anticipation, and even more so in the repeated delaying of the consummation. A notable quirk is his use of extreme, strangely framed close-ups which seem to fetishise eyes, nose, lips, and even teeth.
Zooerastia The unfaithful wife is locked in a dungeon with some very special companions.
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(4:20 min, 640 x 360, 23.2MB)
A counterpart to the first story, also starring Lisbeth Hummel and still set in Russia, but taking place (as does the next) around the turn of the last century. I've freely translated the title. Shame on those who didn't have to look it up! Certainly the theme is controversial, but we will not be confronted by scenes as utterly foul as might have been feared.
An ageing nobleman, the richest man in Russia, has a stunningly beautiful young wife. Discovering her infidelity he locks her naked in a dungeon beneath the stables. There she makes her tortuously slow descent into the ultimate reaches of squalour and degradation.
Something to admire about Russo is the attention he pays to scenes that do not involve sex or nudity. Conventionally these are just a necessary evil to be got through in order to set up the next pair of breasts, but Russo esteems images of fully clothed women as highly as the most explicit nudes. Here we find some wonderful scenes of Lisbeth simply riding her black stallion through the palace gardens. Not only do they establish setting and character, but they provide as much pure enjoyment as anything else in the film.
La Fustigazione A boy and his curious cousin spy on his mother in her room.
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(2:05 min, 640 x 360, 11.2MB)
A callow, slow-witted youth suffers beatings from an uncompromising schoolmaster. The feelings of pain and humiliation are only matched in intensity by those that come from spying on his mother (Piera Maria Caretto) with her lover. But when she catches Peeping Tom in the act and, still half-naked, thrashes him with a riding crop the two sets of emotions become inextricably entangled.
At night the boy yearns for games which cannot be enjoyed alone. The arrival of his delicate and pretty young cousin (Brigitte Petronio) is to make his perverse erotic dreams come true.
As usual Russo does not overburden us with explanations as to who everyone is and what exactly is going on. We are left to make of it what we will, and the result is intensely atmospheric and otherworldly. The most loving care is taken over elements that in lesser hands would be skimmed over as entirely subsidiary to the main theme. In particular the vignettes in the schoolroom, with the autocratic Master and frock-coated, stiff-mannered boys (who as usual look a little old to be still at school) are superb, reminiscent of scenes in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.
This tale was resolved in a manner rather contrary to that for which I had hoped. But as this collection is intended to be about, and for, masochists I suppose I ought to be grateful for that.
La Promessa Remixed to Riz Ortolani - Giovanna's appointment with the dressmaker, and nude in her bedroom suite.
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(1:45 min, 640 x 360, 14.6MB)
A contemporary tale, the shortest, slightest, and most perplexing in the collection. Giovanna, a virgin on the eve of her wedding, reminds her cousin that it is his last chance to fulfill a promise he made to her years ago. It's an ordinary (not to say banal) theme, but Russo tackles it in the same distinctive and eccentric style as before.
The story opens with a strange vignette, equally ordinary and exotic. Giovanna (Francoise Gerardine I believe) is free of her bossy mother for an hour while the dressmaker fits her wedding gown. Filmed like a physical seduction, the dressmaker runs her hands sensually over the fabric covering the body of the golden-haired girl, biting at the loose threads, struggling to hold back her excitement. Images of the innocent girl caressing and kissing her pet white dove are interwoven.
The rest of the story simply cannot live up to the opening. Cousin Eric finally carries out his promise in a manner which, while not in the class of the perversions of the previous stories, is nevertheless rather odd. It's hardly very romantic (or innocent), and only leaves one scratching one's head over the scene's intentions.
The way the story (and thus the entire film) concludes is baffling too. A slow lingering pan takes us away from the lovers in the house, and across the chilly and autumnal gardens as the wedding guests gather and greet each other. A conventional enough scene, but why here and why now? There is an inescapable feeling that a message is being conveyed here, but one that I have no hope of even beginning to decipher.
Ratings
Quality: 8/10 Fun: 9/10
Review copy
| Publisher | Unlicensed | |
| Format | DVD Region 0, NTSC 4:3 (1.85:1 letterbox) | |
| Certificate | - | |
| Image | Sub-VHS, badly letterboxed partly cropping subtitles at 16:9 |
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