GleamingMemory

I'll be quick to address the matters of the film here: It was a very engaging story about the destructive qualities about all-consuming passions; a young Italian woman who cannot emotionally connect with her jailed political-radical fiancé (due in part to her apolitical attitudes and freewheeling approach to life) finds solace and passion in a new young lover whom she embarks on an explicitly sexual relationship with. The anxieties, rage, tenderness and passions that swirl around in the atmosphere of the story equal the dispassionate quiet that seems to engulf the two leads. It lends the film an unsettling mood that permeates through all the political strife that is otherwise lost on the viewer (unless you have a deep knowledge of Italian politics during the 80's). I found the film compelling...what ruined it somewhat is a gratuitous oral sex scene that the actress performs on the male lead...it isn't simulated and leaves little to the imagination. There are other scenes of sex in the film, which I do feel were necessary because they outline the madness and loneliness that the characters live in. But the oral sex scene, I feel, derails the focus on the actual story. It was smooth sailing up until that point and once the infamous sex scene appears (which caused much hoopla back in its day), it's like hitting a roadblock. It's jarring and unnecessary and I am in the camp that believes that the film would not have been harmed any if the scene had been removed from it. And what's unfortunate is that this particular scene may deter people from watching this intriguing film, which I believe is worth a viewing because there is so much going on underneath the surface, emotions and further turmoils layered in the subtext.

Overall: Wonderful film hampered by a much not-needed sex scene.

This film was a struggle to sit through. It was a trying hour and a half and I couldn't believe that a film like this didn't put the actors out of work permanently simply for their participation in it. Forget that it is impossible to follow, the acting is so atrocious it has nearly replaced the nadir of all films in my book - "Beyond the 7th Door". Apparently, the movie revolves around a former cop who is searching for his long-lost daughter that (I guess) was kidnapped by these two psychic criminals. Along the way he meets an android, a cross-dresser, a horribly disfigured monk and a bunch of other losers. If it sounds intriguing at all, it isn't. According to a review floating around on the web (and referenced by the other reviewer here) this film was written by the director in the stupor of a drug haze after a surgery in the hospital. It shows. The film is noted for some nice camera-work, but honestly, nothing that would really past muster in the Sacha Vierny school of cinematography. Bottom line: A film that never was and never should have been.

Why is it that every guy with a digital camera thinks that he is some kind of "auteur"? Give me a break...this was a poorly executed film that suffered by an even poorer idea for a story - namely, it wasn't particularly original. Besides the hackneyed acting and the distracting "mood" music, the film sports a series of rather stomach-turning "love" scenes. They're the kind of scenes that make the sex in some of the more flakier HBO dramas seem inspired. It doesn't help that the plot is painfully transparent - nothing to keep you on the edge of your seat or guessing what happens next. The story is simple: Girl meets boy, girl falls in love, boy pushes drugs on girl, girl gets hooked, girl's life falls apart. Pretty much ripped from your average TV-movie-of-the-week. Throw in some cringe-worthy dialogue and some pretentious emoting from the two leads and you're in for an hour and a half of some very dry sub-par Kiwi soap - the kind that you might find on the really "up there" channels, between the weather news and the test signal stations. Inexplicably, one of the leads (Christopher Brown) won the Best Actor prize at a New Zealand film fest for this movie. I think that says more about New Zealand film festivals than it does about the thespian skills of Mr. Brown...