Guardami

If you want to see a porn movie without feeling guilty for it, this is the one. I've seen better porns. Although played poorly, there is one scene where full credit must be given to Nina: she explicitly asks for no dubbing in a great and passionate "job" given to a porn star.

When Guardami was shown at the Venice Film Festival it was sabled down by most critics because of the explicit scenes. But this is a very good, even sweet movie based upon the life of Moana Pozzi, the Italian pornstar who died of cancer. The part is portrayed in an astonishing, daring way by Italian mainstream actress Elisabetta Cavallotti, who never acted in sexy movies before Guardami. She even started out as a Shakespeare actress in many stage plays. The way she portrays Nina shows a lot of courage. The movie shows the relationship between the pornstar and a regular guy, who is also a cancer patient. It's such a pity the critics aim only at the few sex scenes, because this is a quality movie. The best mainstream movie about the porn industry is of course Boogie Nights, but this one might come in second place....

This movie has the typical implied message: "People who flaunt the norms of society lead short painful lives". This is usually the only way the mainstream will accept (in theaters, anyway) stories about sex stars.

The director, in this case, uses this as an excuse to show more about the porn business in the way of nudity and simulated sex (with lots of shots of genitalia).

The star of the show (inspired by the life of Moana Pozzi, the Italian hardcore sex queen), just seems like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz", where she takes a journey, but most things happen to everyone else. But, like "The Wizard of Oz", what is happening around Dorothy is highly fascinating.

This may be the best film to date about the porno industry that was released in the mainstream.

Narrow-minded moviegoers who bypass this pic because of either its non-English language or its lurid subject will be cheating themselves of a seriously fine piece of creative cinema, highlighted by both the director's gloriously imaginative use of visuals to convey eros without sinking to depths and the star's bravely professional work. This is the sort of courageous work Peter Greenaway and Helen Mirren might do had they even more courage. Cavallotti deserves special commendation for having dared what few actresses in "legitimate" cinema can ever imagine, and her astounding fortitude in delivering an Oscar-calibre performance while (un)dressed throughout most of the movie is one of those must-see experiences [Sharon Stone only wishes she had one-tenth this much guts and talent]. Hope that some American distributor with gonads picks up this gem and teaches non-Italian moviegoers what genuine courage can produce. {Reviewed during American Film Market 2000}

It is nice to see that an italian director can use in such a fine way a lot of real cinema "speech" , I mean not-plain-as-pain editing and no one shot is bad, too!. But bold Ferrario, first dares both with the language and with the contents (we are shown REAL sex, just as in hardcore pic), but then resolves the eternal dilemma in the most common way, that is:"yeah, boys history sucks, all is decaying, but life still goes on, no one will ever defeat love and life"......That's a pity because, methinks, everybody could agree on the fact that if Ferrario did not write himself his scripts he would surely achieve something appreciable worldwide.