Hanna D. - La ragazza del Vondel Park

...so says the blurb on the Australian video cover of this film. Hanna D appears to be some sort of homage to the former, much more superior German film.

Set in Amsterdam, this Italian film was dubbed into English for its release in English speaking countries. It is about a girl named Hanna, borne of a troubled, uncaring and womanising alcoholic mother (the mother gives an appalling, extreme performance). We have to make the presumption that the virginal Hanna starts to sell her body thanks to the troubles she has had endured due to her parents' separation some years earlier. A man who eventually takes her virginity, becomes her pimp, and introduces her to heroin saves Hanna from some rampaging prostitutes, angry with her after they believe her to be encroaching upon their territory. Hanna eventually meets another straight-laced man, with both characters literally falling instantly in love. You see them about 1 minute later ca-noodling in the streets of Amsterdam, having just met on a ferry! Eventually, this 'troubled' relationship results in some strange (illogical, actually) dramas with the pimp. Indeed, there is no logic to the story's progression, and the acting... it's REAL bad, sadly not even bad enough to be considered 'good'.

The Italians often take old ideas and re-jig them into something else - with a tendency to make things more explicit or extreme. This has been seen in various Giallo productions, and it can be seen here. Everything that was largely implied in Christiane F is made explicit. There is a copious amount of full-frontal nudity, and what appears to be close up shots of real drug injecting. We discover new ways of injecting drugs - under the tongue, in the scalp, and even under the eyelid. As was the case with scenes in Christiane F, you even see Hanna experiencing a drug withdrawal, complete with chunky vomit and some pretty ridiculous acting. And there is an unforgettable scene of a woman retrieving a small vial of drugs from her jail mate's anus - these are scenes that stay with you, but for all the wrong reasons.

To be fair, it is not unreasonable to expect an Italian 'remake' to be pretty over the top. Hanna D sure is over the top! On the one hand it is amusing and silly, and on the other you might think 'why did they even bother'.

This film did not appear to have had a wide release back in the 80s, and it is not hard to see why. It was released in Australia back in the mid-80's some time, and has had some exposure in parts of Europe and North America. This film is to soon receive a DVD release.

The ultimate in sleazeploitation, walks familiar lines to Christiane F, yet this is more sleazy and shocking. Some of the in your face 'of all the nerve' scenes will upset some, as our young teen, Hanna D, the girl from Vondell Park, injects, and spreads her legs for dirty old men on trains, her place of business, as shown in the first scene. The next boarding is a depraved middle aged couple, where Hanna, sitting up straight, all dressed up, scholarly, beret and all, is stroking a doll. How sick can this movie get? This is only appetizers. Hanna's pimp, well played, is doing her mother. Hanna ends up doing him, and moving house, where he gets her working in pornographic movies. Then our lovely hapless Hanna falls in love. Trouble yes. Figure the remaining storyline out. Hanna D is nothing more than a dubbed sexploitation skin flick, if you will, with audacious scenes of tasty nudity and sex, while others shock (especially the injecting). That's what this film is out to do, shock, if be more, slutty, sleazy, shocking than Christiane F. On that level, it succeeds, but does not constitute a good movie.

This hilariously inept Italian movie was obviously, uh, inspired by the German art film "Christiane F", which was about a young teenage junkie and prostitute. If you like "Christiane F.", you will probably hate this though because it's almost an unintentional parody of that film. On the other hand, if you find the German film rather heavy-handed, moralistic, and depressing, this is frankly a lot more fun.

"Hanna D." is played by Ana-Gisel Glass, who looks too old to be a young teenager (she was actually about twenty) and too healthy to be a junkie. This is no doubt for the best, however, since she spends a lot of her screen-time butt-naked and/or engaged in various sexual situations. Glass surprisingly went on to a long career in Germany, but her only previous credit was as one of David Hamilton's barely-legal model/actresses in "First Desires". 'Hannah's" booze-soaked mother meanwhile is played by veteran European sex star Karin Schubert (who ironically later dove into hardcore porn to support her own drug habit). Schubert, and the woman who dubbed her here, should have shared some kind of special alternate Academy Award for this hilariously overwrought performance. There's plenty of sordid stuff here--prostitution, anal drug smuggling, murders, gratuitous sex, gratuitous showers, topless dancing, prison scenes, shooting up, ad infinitum--but it's hard to take any of this seriously. From the opening scene featuring a school-uniform-seduction-on-a-commuter-train (which I imagine went over like gang-busters in Japan), to a ridiculous scene where "Hanna" gets in a fight with her pimp and then goes into the next room and takes all her clothes off for no apparent reason, to the laughable finale containing the most unconvincing drowning in the history of the dramatic arts, it's 90 minutes of sheer cinematic ineptitude.

The incredibly generic plot has "Hanna" torn between her brutal pimp and a nice guy she falls in love with. Although credited to "Axel Berg" this was actually written and directed by the infamous Italian Rino DiSivestri, who gave the world "Werewolf Woman" and "Deported Women of the SS". I actually liked his first film "Woman in Cellblock 7", however, and I understand he actually received letters of thanks from real prostitutes for his movie "Red Light Girls". I can't imagine ANYBODY recognizing themselves in this movie though even if it was allegedly inspired by "real events". But what a hoot!

Hanna D: The Girl from Vondel Park (1984)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Italian trash is pretty much a remake of CHRISTIANE F. Teenager Hanna (Ann-Gisel Glass) shows old men her body for some quick cash but after hitting the streets to get away from her alcoholic mother, she soon finds herself with an even bigger creep who gets her hooked on heroin and forcing her into prostitution. If you shy away from trash that takes a serious subject and exploits it just to show off some T&A then you'll certainly want to stay far away from this movie, which is certainly one of the sleaziest that I've seen. It's not that the film is overly graphic but exploiting a subject matter like this is going to raise a few eyes and there's enough over-the-top moments here to make fans of the genre happy. We get outrageous dialogue between the hookers and their clients, silly cat fights between the woman, a drug dealer getting beat up by two men on motorcycles, the drunk mother wanting her daughter to sleep with her boyfriend so that he'll stick around and all of this happens in the first twenty-minutes! The sleaze level is pretty high from start to finish as the main reason for this movie being around is so that various women can take their clothes off. Glass does a pretty good job in her role as she manages to handle the sleaze as well as the more serious moments that the film offers. She was apparently twenty-years-old when this was released but her body looks much younger and this here really adds to the creepy nature of the subject matter. The supporting cast are the types you'd expect to see in something like this and that includes the really bad dubbing. The 84-minute running time gets to feel a bit long after the first hour due in large part to the movie turning way too serious in the second half. I'm not sure about others but I hate when an exploitation film tries to switch gears and put across some sort of message. Another problem is that the story itself is so choppy that it just seems to bounce from one situation to the next without too much thought or reason. Bruno Mattei was in charge of editing and some might think this is the reason for the film being so choppy but I'd guess it had more to do with the screenplay not offering more. So, in the end, if you're a fan of Euro-sleaze then eat up as this here offers enough for two movies.

I think the only way this film could be more exploitive would be to have a rip roaring gun fight, and while that doesn't happen this is still manages to be one really sleaze exploitation film.

This is the story of Hanna. Her parents have split, her mother is a drunk with a younger boyfriend (who would much rather sleep with Hanna). Many of her friends are junkies and worse. Hanna gets money by letting people see her naked. Eventually her home life goes from dysfunctional to destructive (a short hop) and Hanna needs to escape. She begins to use heroine and eventually takes up with a guy who pimps her out. As her life begins to slide she meets a nice young man who falls in love with her and she tries to get clean. However her old life is still lurking out there.

This is a very sleazy film. Its a walk on the wild side. I have no idea if its true or not but the picture it paints isn't particularly pleasant. As an exploitation film its an okay time killer. The lead is good looking both in and out of her clothes. The gory details of the life of our heroine is suitably unpleasant. The problem is that after a while the film simply becomes very talky and repetitive. How many times will people shooting up shock? How many sex for money encounters where the girl secretly cries do we have to see before it stops effecting us? It all wears thin after a while and we become desensitized to anything by the second half (although the retrieval of the drugs in the rehab center is an exploitation classic) If you want a sleazy exploitation film, and don't mind it repeating itself in the second half then see this movie. If you want anything else stay away.