Verbotene Spiele

The movie's fame makes people neglect its other contents. Questions about disturbing nudity mean closing eyes to avoid really disturbing questions and messages of the movie. Maladolescenza offers a dark, bleak, unpolished and sadly realistic picture of growing up, of the age that adults consider most beautiful years in whole life, either forgetting their youth, suppressing their memories the way people often do, or maybe indeed being so lucky to have a childhood of dreams.

And Maladolescenza is a dreamlike movie, a fairy tale that shows how easy can dreams become a nightmare, how close are fairy tales to horror. But it also confirms that never during whole human's life this extremes get so close as during school years.

Placing the movie in a inexpressibly beautiful nature is an ingenious decision. Such an ambient can hardly fail. "Mission", "Blue Lagoon", "Six Days Seven Nights", "Picnic at Hanging Rock"... but all these locations are rather exotic; Maladolescenza was filmed in the heart of Europe (though plot is carefully sited out of place and time) showing that beauty is all around if you just look for it. But it creates a contrast.

Apart from the first scene (a weird one, but a hint of Fabrizio's personality), the movie starts rather slowly, looking as a Saturday morning family movie. The idea to introduce only three characters appears to be effective - no one influences the kids, what makes the movie message even more disturbing: this shows what kids are, no one forces them to do what they do. Especially Fabrizio who lives in forest seems not to have much contact with rest of the world, his cruelty is immanent, essential. Sylvia is not much different, though she is a product of civilization: she not only joins Fabrizio's behaving, but induces more creative way of torture, gained in our modern "human" world. We can imagine her doing everything to be with most popular boy in the class, then with best sportsman in the school, later maybe with some pop-star...

Finally, Laura. The opposite character, played by Lara Wendel who came from nowhere. While Ionesco was already a famous photo model - her acting can be annoyingly stilted, but fits into Sylvia's character - and Loeb played main role in "Mes petites amoreuses", Lara is almost a newbie in movies as Laura is a newbie in teen-adulthood. But unlike Sylvia she is shy, obeys parent's orders (being home on time) and they trust her (letting her be away from home whole day). A perfect victim for bullying.

So this movie makes one of the best analyzes of bullying ever made on screen. A surprise for 70's, because the amount of this problem was recognized recently. Some movies dealt with bullying but hardly ever in such a pure form until Larry Clark's "Kids"; his "Bully", though using that word, deals with consequences of bullying in young adults (who still keep the same interpersonal relations). Only Scandinavians (who, at least in movies, understand children as if they had invented them) dare to handle it either as sub-plots or even main plots (Rubber Tarzan, Det skaldede spogelse, Saning eller konsekvens...). In other cinematographies victims of bullying are usually characters made to laugh at, as if they deserved their fate ("Back to Future" where Marty reverses the situation, what is unbelievable for real victim)..

Laura needs Fabrizio. She is lonely. This lonely forest is so uninhabited that she has no other peers. She grew up with Fabrizio and tolerates the changes he is going through. Believing it is only a passing period she accepts her role afraid she would be rejected otherwise. And here we see the difference between bullying and torturing or simple violence: Laura isn't running away or avoiding perpetrators (e.g. "Iluzija", "Bluebird", "Före stormen"), she constantly returns day after day hoping that things will become as they were before. But they never do. This obedience of the victim feeds bully's strength, his feeling of power grows.

Sexuality in the movie is not an expression of love (as some comments say) but it is also not a rape (as some others suggest). It is just the way victim is proving her loyalty and obedience.. In the beginning of the movie there is curiosity, peeking normal for the age, but once when bully-victim relation is established it affects the sexuality as well. Sylvia, who knows the real life better than Fabrizio and Laura, noticed or was told already that people (mostly females) can control others (mostly males) by proper use of sex. Fabrizio fell in trap, and Sylvia mixing the developing adolescent/adult sexuality and still existing child cruelty starts an avalanche that leads to tragedy.

For Laura this is not just one bad summer. Remember how she was happy to meet Fabrizio. She doesn't ever mention and never misses anything from outer world. Probably she hasn't good experiences there either, it's easy to assume she's been bullied in school too – victims are special type of children and bullies will always recognize them. And now, the only safe and beautiful place became equal or even worse than her everyday world. The only true and gentle friend became equal or worse than the others. It's not hard to trace this fate to psychic disorders or suicides, so frequent in teenage years.

People who are easily offended, whose attitudes don't allow them to watch certain content, shouldn't give a try to this movie. But they still shouldn't blame it for being shallow, worthless, just because of things they've heard about it. The best way of checking is, certainly, watching, and it could be more useful for people who work with children (teachers, psychologists, social workers, counselors) and for victims of bullying, to understand why they couldn't help themselves... though a question why no one else didn't help (them) always stays unanswered.

Having grown up in Amsterdam,Holland, where our liberal ideas are pretty much the norm, I have to say that I cannot understand why this movie caused so many problems when it came out! Sure, it is a movie of the 70's when peace and love were still there amongst a lot of old and younger people in Holland. I saw the film on a good DVD version last year and thought it was a love story about youth, rite of passage and growing up. The music in the background was pretty dire and some of the scenes were a bit dull (what was the snake scene all about??) but generally it wasn't a bad film. If some people get wound up about preteen nudity, then all I can say is they should get a life!!

Often beautiful at a visual level, poignant on its directorial style, joyful but nostalgic at the same time, and ultimately a satisfactory experience for the all-rounded, open-minded viewer (you may want to stay clear, and while at it also to spare us from a certain neo-medieval kind of retarded comments, if you happen not to be one).

You may love this movie, you may hate it, or you may simply end up wondering what's all the controversy about and why is it still banned or heavily censored in certain so-called "advanced" countries.

One thing is certain: if you like film in general, you should watch it (there's a great new DVD available from Germany, with English subtitles).

Not only because it's a centerpiece both of cinema styles and social perspectives in change and of its own author's career and I dare say, personal life, but also because it's one of those rare, last standing moments of sheer honesty which are representative of a bygone era, and indirectly also representative of how close-minded and hypocrite our western world has become in the past two decades, in direct contrast with what should be expected from a society which repeatedly acknowledges itself (no one else probably would, and clearly DON'T) as the most "advanced" - making it all the more ironic that this simple but interesting movie IS, after all, all about the loss of innocence and youth.

I own this movie & am proud of it. I live in the good old USA and had to buy my copy in Europe, so i could get it uncut, the full 93 min version. This movie may be very controversial, but anybody who can't see past the nudity is very closed minded. This movie is a brilliant piece of art. The forest alone, is worth a million words, not to menchine the story. I'm 19, and had a difficult upbringing, especially in junior high, but this movie nails it, the emotions and feelings that i had as a preteen and young teen. I praise this movie for exploring this difficult transition from childhood to adulthood. Anybody who would call this movie pornography, is ignorant, as far as i'm concerned, at most maybe you could argue that it is mild erotica, but even that is a stretch. When are people going to realize that nudity does not equal pornography, and love making does not always equal sex. Anyway, i have to put in my vote as one of the best coming of age movies that i have ever seen, a 9/10. I have seen a lot of movies, spending a lot of my winters watching movie after movie, I'm a huge movie buff, and through my experience i have found that European movies tend to be a lot more honest about feelings, love, and life in general, then do US movies, where ratings are based on sex and violence. This movie remains a favorite of mine to this day on how brutally honest it protrays this adolescent transition. A must see for anyone who loves art or who is struggling through adolescence.

This film has so much to say about important issues, and does it so well in many ways, that I really do want to believe it was conceived as a serious work of art and not as a sop to the dirty raincoat brigade. I've read all the reviews here by its stalwart defenders, who argue a good case for a unique film, but I remain to be fully convinced.

Did the production team deliberately court controversy by using so much child nudity or were they genuinely taken aback by the reaction to its release? Western Europe in the 1970s was pretty liberal about such things, and still is by American standards (thank God!), but even so the boundaries of "mainstream" films must have been pushed back quite a bit with Maladolescenza. Arguing that so much footage of pubescent sex was essential to the artistic integrity of the whole would have been difficult even then. Nowadays the film couldn't possibly be made, which is probably a good thing overall simply because (in my view) young children should not be sexualised for the benefit of adults. However in the case of Maladolescenza, although the girl actors were only 11 or 12, I think you would find it pretty difficult to assert that they were exploited or harmed in any way, judging from a cursory look at their filmographies; though I am open to persuasion otherwise by anyone who really knows.

So what we have is a curiosity from another age, and it's really rather good. The controversy over its content, which has made it so notorious (and which attracted my attention in the first place, and no doubt many others'), will rage forever, but beyond all that it's a pretty convincing study of adolescent torment and suffering. The locations are stunning and the three young actors are quite beautiful, highlighting all the more the psychological and physical torture they inflict on each other, which is achingly well portrayed and well acted. The film is shocking in its portrayal of children's cruelty, more so than any other I can think of, even Lord of the Flies. This is clearly deliberate, yet the shock value is compounded by the sex scenes — also intentional of course, but necessary to the whole? Sex is clearly integral to the power games being played out by the kids, and again this is a convincing aspect of the plot as a whole. Kids really do behave like that (you deny it at your peril) and a shiver went down my spine as I recalled my own youth — so the film worked in this way for me. It's challenging and that's good. I just recoil a little from seeing so much young flesh in such sexual situations. There's nothing wrong with nudity, yes even child nudity, and nothing wrong with sex; but combine the two and you cross the line at some point, and I think this film does, even though it's tastefully done and certainly not what I'd call child porn. That's my take on it, from my English standpoint. But sorry, righteous Christians and outraged moralists, I don't reckon I'll burn in hell for watching and enjoying it, and I'd far rather live in a society that permits eccentricities like this than your prurient paradise.

So yes, it's uncomfortable and challenging viewing, on many levels, and on these terms the film is undoubtedly successful. It obviously sickens the prudish, and although I can understand why, that actually contributes to its appeal for me. Ban it? Never! You don't have to watch it and neither do I, but I am strangely attracted by its power and sheer oddity. Flaws: yes, plenty of course, it's no masterpiece. The ending is daft for one, the dog pretty pointless for another (when it's around, which is not much). There also seem to be one or two non-sequiturs in the narrative flow, which may suggest some hasty editing (some sources give the original film length as 117 or 127 minutes, whereas the "uncut" version generally in circulation today only runs to around 91 minutes). But hopefully it will survive as a controversial cult classic for those of us with a taste for the weird, and a reminder of better times when the sight of a naked child did not automatically lead to mass hysteria from the self-righteous moral brigade across the pond.

Overall verdict — Great: no. Darned good: yes. Shocking: oh yes. Just don't try and do it again!