Appassionata

"Appassionata" tells the story of a family – the father is Dr. Emilio Rutelli (Gabriele Ferzetti), a dentist; the mother, Elisa (Valentina Cortese), a psychologically unstable woman; the daughter Eugenia (Ornella Muti), who feels attracted to her father and jealous of her mother, and finally Eugenia's friend, Nicola (Eleonora Giorgi), a girl who lives with her aunt – her father is a diplomat and hasn't time for her, and her mother...(?). Anyway, one day, Nicola goes to Dr. Emilio's practice and seduces him. Nicola needs love. And Eugenia, she will also try to catch her father in her net. Dr. Emilio feels puzzled, it is as if suddenly he were on a roller-coaster. As to the mother, the emotionally unbalanced Elisa – crises, the need to smile and a desire to cry….

"Appassionata" has not the sleaze that some people may have imagined – but it is nonetheless a very sensual film. It has some sex and nudity scenes (taboo-breaking for their time) - the beautiful starlets Ornella Muti and Eleonora Giorgi were the main reason why I've ordered this film. But the film has more to offer than sleaze – there is an interesting story and good performances all around; besides the stunning Eleonora Giorgi and Ornella Muti, one should also mention particularly the very good performance of Valentina Cortese, as the mother on the verge of a breakdown.

The story in the film is not as well developed as it could have been, the film is somewhat irregular, but I've enjoyed it quite a bit. Well, I've seen "Appassionata" in the original Italian language, and that certainly makes a difference.

It's a little hard to describe this movie. It's kind of like "American Beauty" where you have a dysfunctional middle-class family with a father that lusts after his teenage daughter's best friend, but in this movie he actually has sex with the friend (repeatedly)and perhaps his own daughter as well(?!) To be fair, this movie is nowhere near as offensive and disturbing as it sounds on paper. It's directed with subtlety and some amount of class; it's much close to Italian art than Italian sleaze. The actors playing the mother and father are both very good, and the two teenage girls are played by Ornella Muti and Eleanora Giogi, both then in their late teens/early twenties, and two of the most beautiful women in the history of the Italian cinema. (Like Jenny Tamburi in the similar film "La Seduzione" or Gloria Guida in about every movie she ever made, these two look good both in and out of their schoolgirl uniforms, but that is not because they are remotely believable as actual schoolgirls).

This movie is not so much offensive or disturbing as it is confounding. The Muti character's mother who was once a famous concert pianist is suffering from some kind of mental breakdown, and her father is understandably drawn to a new life with the younger Giorgi character, who is like a sexy blank slate for all his middle-age fantasies. The motivation of the younger characters though are much more opaque and they are rather thinly-drawn as characters. Giorgi's character clearly lacks for parental attention, which explains why she befriends her friend's sickly mother, but not why she throws sex on her father several times but otherwise gives him the cold shoulder. The Muti characters actions, however, are completely perplexing: she is having trouble losing her virginity (which in itself strains credibility to the limit), but comes up with the most jaw-dropping and unbelievable solution to her problem imaginable.

This movie is available in two versions: an Italian version which censors out the full-frontal nudity (which is hardly the most offensive thing in this movie), and a badly-dubbed English which is very confusing and seems to leave out a lot of plot points.

Oh, and by the way, Agostina Belli is NOT in this movie. (Muti. Giorgi, AND Belli all in the same movie probably would have melted the celluloid in the camera). I'd recommend this movie to fans of beautiful Italian actresses, but be prepared to possibly be offended and definitely confused!

I have so many questions.

What happened with the daughters friend in the dentists chair? Did he drug her? Was she attracted to him? Has she some mental disorder or kink that makes her react to older men?

What was with the daughter? Was she attracted to the father as well? Did she want to become the mother? Did she want want what what her friend was getting from her father?

And what about the ending? Who did the father sleep with? Is he an unreliable narrator? In the end, does he leave? Every just seems to carry on as it did before so I can only surmise that this happened in his head.

Interesting yet horribly flawed and one can never discount the possibility that the Italians just wanted to get boobs on screen to get bums on seats.

There does not seem to be an undamaged and complete print of this film. At several points scenes break off (although nudity or violence is not being shown) and the film jumps to a quite unconnected scene. It would seem that the original censored versions have survived more or less unscathed, but that the franker original director's cut has not. Those hoping for pubic hair and full frontal Ornella Muti will not be totally disappointed, but if you were hoping for a properly restored version of the director's original intention, I fear that we will never see it. A scene where the father is out hunting, for example, has obviously been so radically cut that it makes little sense. In a few other places scenes are cut off before they have properly ended. This is unlikely to have been the work of the director... Still worth watching, however.

If it wasn't performed by three of the top sensual Italian actress of the seventies/eighties this movie wouldn't be of any worthy. Belli, Muti and Giorgi act in this typical sexy fake-drama to pay the admission ticket to the show business. The nasty plot is basically in the service of having some nudity and (very) savagery scenes. The story is a typical Boccacio, and the dramatic cut given by the director simply avoid to fall to the 'sexy-commedia all'italiana' genre (70's Italian sex comedy). I wouldn't say if it is the classic Italian-trash so loved by Q. Tarantino, but it is very close.

My vote is 5 (out of 10)