Das Schwedenmädchen Anita

Christina Lindberg was already selling herself in nude pinups and movies several years before this movie. This movie is yet just another "social issue" excuse for selling Christina Lindberg and soft-core porn.

The movie pretends to explore the true life of a teenage sex-addict but in reality it's just an excuse for the nude and sexual content matter of the movie. There are of course the pompous analyses by her psychologist but they're simply a vehicle to deepen the chaotic and kinky erotic state of the character, played by Christina Lindberg.

Overall, the movie lacks depth, the acting is poor and 70's-cliche' in its settings and seems to have no real purpose other than to sensationalize popular Christina Lindberg in yet one more sexually exploitative movie.

The seventeen year-old outcast Anita (Christina Lindberg) has neither a good relationship with her parents and sister nor has friends. She is a nymphomaniac and has intercourse and BJ with most of the men in her little town regardless of their ages.

When she meets the psychology student Erik (Stellan Skarsgård), he brings her to live with his friends that are artists and she discloses her sexual experiences to him. Further, Erik discuss her problem with his adviser, he also realizes that he has fallen in love with her. But Anita needs an orgasm to cure first before staying with Erik.

"Anita" (1973) is a Sweden-French movie of exploitation about a seventeen year-old nymphomaniac forty years before the hype in the Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac". The story lines are the same, but the Danish director has detailed the plot along four hours running time. Stellan Skarsgård works in both movies listening to the nymphomaniac. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not Available.

Anita: Swedish Nymphet (1973)

** (out of 4)

Cult star Christina Lindberg of Thriller: A Cruel Picture fame stars as Anita, a 16-year-old girl who has to have sex and it doesn't matter with who. She picks up lawyers, junkies, little boys, drunks or even the homeless. Her sexual behavior gets her kicked out of towns but one day she meets a doctor who thinks he can help her. This Swedish picture is rather strange because it's certainly a sexploitation title and the main goal is for the beautiful Lindberg to get naked every chance she gets but the overall tone of the movie is so serious that it's hard to have fun with the film. The story is pretty straight forward, which means it gets pretty boring as it rarely goes over the top outside of a 16-year-old wanting any guy she can get. As for Lindberg, this is only the second film I've seen with her but she certainly deserves her cult status. She's certainly easy on the eyes but unlike a lot of erotic stars, she can also act and she brings a lot life to her character.

This is a good solid well made film and not at all like I expected. Indeed although there is much sexual activity depicted, we see nothing like as much of Christina Lindberg as we do in say, Exposed. Because the film is serious we do not get an exploitative showing of the leading lady's numerous liaisons and due to the constant reminding that these are desperate encounters of an unhappy young girl, we find ourselves in a rather uncomfortable position for most of the time. There are moments, nevertheless! For those that reckon Lindberg cannot act, she certainly does well enough here in many a varied situation, be it talking with her psychiatrist chum, trying to relate to her parents, or sucking some old man's d***. Stellan Skarsgard, who plays the said psychiatrist, and very convincingly too, he had a most illustrious career ahead of him and is still very much working today, having appeared and even sung in Mamma Mia! Worth seeing but it is rather downbeat a lot of the time.

People debate today whether there really is such a thing as nymphomania, or if it was just a term pinned on women who tried to lead a naturally healthy sex life back in much more repressive, Victorian times when such a thing was not permissible. One thing's for sure though , if this particular movie is based on a real story as it claims to be, this girl definitely had a serious problem. The girl in this movie (played by Cristina Lindberg) , will sleep with anybody, and I do mean ANYBODY. This turns her into a social outcast (because of course, nobody likes a beautiful girl who wants to have sex all the time). She's like a junkie in her compulsion, begging for the key to a friend's apartment so she can have quickies with unattractive businessmen she picks up at the train station. And when one kindly elderly guy tries to console her after an unsatisfying sexual encounter, she drops to her knees to give him the b.j. of his life.

All this is treated in a very serious, at times almost depressing manner, and Lindberg gives a very earnest performance. Since I doubt too many people then or now watched this movie out of concern for the social problem of nymphomania (more likely they wanted to know where they could find a girl like this), this move and Lindberg's performance may seem pretty campy. I have to say though I'd much rather see a movie like this that sets out to be somewhat serious and falls into camp than a movie that aims at camp and falls flat on its face. And though Lindberg will never be mentioned in the same breath as Greta Garbo, her overly seriously performance here is infinitely better than most modern-day "cult actresses" and "scream queens" camping and mugging their way through movies that they (very erroneously) consider beneath their talents.

In any case, campy or not, this movie definitely succeeds as exploitation thanks to Lindberg doffing her duds every five minutes or so. If you've never seen Cristina Lindberg, she's kind of like really sexy mutant or mythical beast--she has the face of an innocent teenage Swedish schoolgirl attached to the body of a voluptuous burlesque-era stripper (which is not at all to say that her appeal is limited to those who dig schoolgirls or burlesque strippers). Her most memorable scene here is where she and her goody-good twin sister are singing for their parents' friends and she turns the occasion into an impromptu full-monty striptease. And if you are a fan of Lindberg, or become one after this movie, also check her out in "Thriller--a Cruel Picture" (a favorite of Quentin Tarantino), her first film "Maid in Sweden", the German "schulmadchen report" films in which she was a regular, and the unbelievably depraved film "Depraved" (sadly unavailable in English). She's almost always worth the price of admission all by herself.