Reich und gnadenlos

The director of SWEPT AWAY, SEVEN BEAUTIES, LOVE AND ANARCHY, and SOTTO SOTTO has given us another of her offerings on the battle of the sexes, Italian style. Its full title translates as "Summer Night with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil". Mariangela Melato plays a tarantula-like Milanese industrialist, while Michele Placido is a brutish Sicilian bandit leader. In an update of the class warfare struggle and a reversal of the kidnapping roles, this super-rich dame abducts the handsome bandit/beast, has him bound in designer Enrico Coveri chains and transported to her plush villa where she provides him with some exquisitely vengeful torture and lovin'. It is a kinky and sometimes funny movie, but one hears the unsubtle voice of Wertmuller repeating itself ad nauseam from film to film and this ultimately has a tiresome effect. The most pleasing Wertmuller films of the past decade have not been sexual/political diatribes like this but the more human and humane charmers CIAO, PROFESSORE (IO, SPERIAMO CHE ME LA CAVO) and SATURDAY, SUNDAY, AND MONDAY with Sophia Loren.

As the title promises, this movie comes with poetic beauty. Wertmuller's sight gags are still strong, but certainly this movie lacks the social-political timing and punching power that Swept Away ... and Seven Beauties had.

The film is a very convoluted tale of a strange rich woman who kidnaps a Sicilian mobster and holds him for ransom. Again and again, what occurred in the film made very little sense and the plot gave me a headache.

First, why she exactly kidnapped this pig of a man is uncertain. Supposedly a syndicate of rich folks backed her efforts because they wanted revenge for all this the kidnappings this mobster did to them. This made sense. However, on the DVD case, it mentioned that the lady was interested in "ecological preservation", and although she briefly mentioned something about this in the film, it was as if this HAD been part of the film but most of it had been excised--leaving a lot of loose ends. Was it about revenge or punishing an eco-terrorist? I think it was just about revenge and the other aspect was barely mentioned.

Second, while the plan made sense at first, having the man taken from a secure cell where he was chained and putting him in a giant luxury tent made my head hurt. Why, why, why???!!! And for the good plan to suddenly be tossed aside so this seemingly smart lady can talk, talk, talk to her "victim" made no sense. Was she smart or an idiot--the film didn't seem sure.

Third, you kidnap an evil man and feed him caviar and get him prostitutes--even after he shows no submission and most kidnappers would have just worked him over with a rubber hose or applied some electric shocks to various and sundry parts of his body. Hmmmm...now the caviar and whores--THAT'S a clever plan.

Fourth, and this is the worst part for me, is that the film just seemed like a rehash and reworking of director Wertmüller's previous success, SWEPT AWAY. While Giancarlo Giannini was not in the film, the man filling this role looked a heck of a lot like him--complete with the beard and pig-like manners. And, of course, Mariangela Melato (who was in SWEPT AWAY) is back playing much the same role--a spoiled rich idiot who is eventually conquered by the power of lower class animalistic sex. It's supposed to be a metaphor for the struggle between the rich and the proletariat, though the comparison is stupid--the "worker" is a mafioso--hardly a man of the people. And, if the rich were all like Melato, then it's impossible to imagine how they all came to power, given they are idiots. As a result, her message was certainly not subtle nor was it particularly convincing.

If you insist on watching a Wertmüller film, try SWEPT AWAY--it was much more original and seemed to have an excellent message. Oh, and by the way, this is an EXTREMELY sexual movie--don't let the kiddies see it!

Get this -- an opinionated, imperious, upper-class Italian woman is confronted with an equally opinionated, earthy, lower-class Italian male. The result is political argument, sexual passion, male dominance and female submission. Sounds like that great Lina Wertmuller film, Swept Away . . . . True, but that is also the plot of this mediocre Lina Wertmuller film, Summer Night with Greek Profile, etc., as well as the plot of that other mediocre Lina Wertmuller film, the remake of Swept Away. The first Swept Away was terrific. There was never any need to redo it.

The mechanism employed by Summer Night to bring the rich lady and the man of the people together is ridiculous and contrived. And this rich lady is less interesting, being more one-dimensional, than the one appearing in Swept Away, even though both were played by the same fine actress, Mariangela Melato. Summer Night's working class male, Michele Placido, is excellent, but it is impossible to watch this film without feeling disappointed that he is not the great Giancarlo Giannini, who played his counterpart in Swept Away.

Really can't figure why La Wertmuller made this flick, or the Swept Away remake, unless she is trying to relive what may have been her finest hour. Skip this and see Swept Away again. Or try one of her other fine movies that don't involve the rich woman/working man theme.

There are some truly amazing Lina Wertmuller films. This is not one of them. Oddly enough, this is almost a remake by her of one of her most spectacularly successful films, Swept Away. The plot has some differences, but the setting and the characters and class and power dynamics are nearly identical. I found the sex scenes in this version rather embarrassing, and there really seemed to be no point in making this at all as there were no new ideas added.

Once again I find myself shaking my head when a director attempts a remake of an excellent classic film. But the same director??? For heaven's sake, WHY?