After the international critical and box-office success of Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Decameron", Italian, French and even Spanish film-makers produced a flood of Decameron-related films of varying quality and varying amounts of nudity and eroticism. In Italy about 300 such films were made between 1972 and 1976: so many that Italian critics gave the sub-genre a name: "decamerotici" (erotic films set in the Middle Ages or Renaissance and which referenced, however vaguely, Boccaccio and similar authors (like Chaucer).
Nina Companeez's film is an entertaining and tasteful contrbution to the genre. Structured around troubadouresque poetry and ministren-style folksong, the film offers the viewer a series of vignettes that tell the story of a young villager's quest to recover his fiancée, kidnapped by brigands. In the spirit of François Villon's bawdier verse (or the prose of Rabelais), the film guides us through a sentimental education in the ways of Eros and towards a more refined appreciation of the role of seduction and of love in the sublimation of carnal delights. The poet Louise Labé and the storyteller Marguerite de Navarre seem to be the tutelary spirits of the final section of the film.
Brigitte Bardot glows with talent, warmth and wit, but all the cast is excellent. The nude bodies displayed -both male and female- are all beautiful and wrapped in an aura of 70s sensuality. There is humor, both rustic and refined. And for "Game of Thrones" fans, there is even a formidable female knight.
This said, the cinematography is conventional and not very inspired; and the wardrobe is sometimes a bit inaccurate for the period. Not a classic, but a pleasant entertainment nonetheless.
