Giselle

After a long period studying in Europe, Giselle (Alba Valeria) returns to Brazil and spends the days in the farm of her father Luccini (Nildo Parente). When her stepmother and aunt Haydée (Maria Lúcia Dahl) unexpectedly sees Giselle making love with the foreman Angelo (Carlo Mossy) in a waterfall, Haydée shuts Giselle up and they have sex. When Haydée's son Serginho (Ricardo Faria) arrives in the farm from Rio de Janeiro, he goes to the town to buy cigarettes and they have a fight in the bar with three strangers. When Serginho and Angelo return to the farm, they have sex and Giselle joins them in a three some. Along the days and the nights, Giselle, Angelo, Haydée, Serginho and the doctor Ana (Monique Lafond) has all sort of kinky sex while their family decays.

"Giselle" is a bold and polemic movie about the physical and moral decadency of a family with the most different combinations of kinky non-explicit sex. Along the dull story, the introduction shows a stallion having sex with a stud mare. Then there are conventional sex between man and woman; masculine and feminine homosexual relationships; threesome; orgy; pedophilia; rape; executions; vigilantism; unethical behavior, all of that along about 90 minute running time. Alba Valeria is very sexy and spontaneous undressing in every scene. In 1980, this movie was a sort of relief valve in times of military dictatorship in Brazil showing the disintegration of the institution family and my wife and I watched it in the movie-theater. In accordance with the information of Carlo Mossy in the DVD, more than 14-million viewers watched this film in the movie-theaters and it is the top box office of Brazilian movies ever. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Giselle"

My review was written in September 1982 after a Times Square screening.

"Giselle" is a Brazilian pornochanchada, one of those local market softcore sex frolics, which was produced back in the mid-1970s. Surprisingly, it has been imported for U. S. theatrical distribution amidst the bumper crop of more artistically-minded films from that nation. Its best chances are clearly in the cable-tv and homevideo areas.

Rendered neutral and silly by the English-dubbed job, "Giselle" is a brightly-lit series of vacation spot vignettes. Plot involves a young woman, Giselle (Alba Valeria), who comes home to Brazil after attending college in Europe. Writer-director Victor Di Mello, vet of dozens of these films, tries out as many sexual concatenations as he can think of, with sister-stepbrother and daughter-stepmother liaisons spotlighted. Co-producer Carlo Mossy is careful to cast himself as the family's horse handler, irresistible to women and a brawler to boot.

What differentiates this picture from the legion of European sexploiters that preceded it to American theatres is the almost militant "anything goes" proselytizing. Besides an emphasis upon lesbianism (Giselle is loved by two women whose rivalry is th epic's sole dramatic conflict) and homosexuality, film even endorses Giselle's father (Nildo Parente) in his child molestting with a servant's young boy. That this has little impact among the many shots of Giselle disrobing and simulating ecstatic pasion is probably a function of the dubbing and sloppy editing.

In the title role, Valeria s a perky and sexy performer. Prtettiest cast member is blonde Monique LaFond, most improbable in the role of Giselle's childhood babysitter who after being gang-raped went to Algeria and Cuba, coming back to Brazil as a Communist social worker. Typical of the picture's construction, she is assassinated when her presence gets in the way of the family's sex life.

Tech credits are okay, though musical score endlessly plays instrumental versions of Lennon-McCartney's "Let It Be", "Yesterday" and other material.

"Giselle" is a pornochanchada (the way the 70s and 80s erotic films were called in Brasil - a literal translation would be porn comedy). But it is in some ways an atypical pornochanchada, because one can almost say that the film preaches free love. I'll try to explain this later. Let's go to the film.

Giselle (Alba Valéria) returns from a long stay in Europe to Brazil. She goes to her father's farm where she'll meet also her "aunt"(?), that's married to her father. The farm is run by the caretaker Angelo (Carlo Mossy). Later on Giselle's cousin Serginho (Ricardo Faria) will arrive in the farm to join the group.

Giselle is a sixteen girl who seduces everyone that crosses her way - men or women. She is sweet and full of joy and innocent in her own way. Giselle wants to take what life offers, right here, right now! Her first conquest is the caretaker Angelo (full of energy himself), and her "aunt" (Maria Lucia Dahl) is not long in following suit. And Giselle will still meet a communist militant, Ana (Monique Lafond) and Cupid and/or Eros will be busy once again. During Giselle's affair with Ana, the film becomes suddenly political! You have to see to believe it.

There will be many side stories:

1) a stallion mounts a mare - this is shown in the opening of the film and it's just to wet the appetites of the viewer and the film characters, who watch together this scene. It's just an aperitif for the things to come.

2) man loves woman (it may be more than one)

3) woman loves woman (good scenes)

4) man loves man (this is less usual in Brazilian films and in "Giselle" the relationship is not shown in a satirical manner).

5) man loves child (it is not directly shown, but clearly hinted at) - a child is leaving a man's room pulling up the trousers, and the man stands by the door watching the child go away. I'm sure that in USA there would be a great hue and cry about this scene.

6) rape.

What is amazing about "Giselle" is that it adopts a very free view on sex. The film seems to say: "Take whatever comes your way - if it gives you pleasure and hurts no one, it's alright!" Anyway, the film is very good-humoured and the actors seem to be at ease in their scenes. It's as if "Giselle" were a film made by friends. Maybe it was.

"Giselle" must have been shot fast – the dubbing, in some scenes, leaves something to be desired, but the violence scenes were reasonably well-made (especially for Brazilian standards). It's certainly a pleasant film to watch: be it for its sex scenes - not graphic ones, mind you! -, or its "joie de vivre".

Horse sex, sex on waterfalls, lesbian sex in family, ménage à trois, gay sex, another ménage à trois... almost everybody have sex with everybody! The film begins (and ends) with an extremely conservative text in lettering, what was probably a way to be more easily accepted by still active censorship from military dictatorship. However, the free way sex is represented is not a moralist one. It is strongly representative of sexploitation, for sure, but in the non-violent scenes it seems sympathetic to that lust. Differently from other Pornochanchada (the sexploitation genre of Brazilian cinema in the 70's and 80's) irresponsible films, there is no romanticization of rape here, and those who do that are despicable cowards, the only proper way to see that. Also, there is an open and direct critique to torture and political repression in military dictatorship and affinity with left-wing concerns (possible due the gradual political openness that was advancing slowly in Brasil), although it hapenned together with a sort of compensation, that is advocating for peaceful measures and individual charity. Additionally, the lack of homophobia in the whole narrative (not only for lesbians but also for gay men) is quite impressive, considering the huge prejudice that characterized Brazilian cinema and society in those years. While these elements are to be praised, a hateful one is unforgivably indulged as a minor (and even funny!) feebleness, what would fortunately never be accepted nowadays (I refer to Luccini's plot twist). To resume, it has some acting problems, script is not sophisticated and there is a lot of exploitation (besides the dire narrative for Luccini's criminal behavior), but still the movie is better and deeper than anyone coud imagine by watching its very beginning. Well, I must add that director Victor di Mello had previously directed 'Essa gostosa brincadeira a dois', and would be associate producer of 'Crazy: um dia muito louco' in the following year, two of the best movies from the Pornochanchada genre ever (true cinema, beyond sexploitation). P. S.: Soundtrack includes San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) and The Beatles' Let it be and Yesterday. I am sure composers authorized it (hahaha, that is a joke, obviously).

This Brazilian movie begins as many movies of that era (unfortunately) do with two horses mating. While this will probably repel most viewers, it turns on "Giselle", a teenage rich girl just back from European boarding school, so much that she goes off with the studly ranch hand to have sex in a waterfall. Her new, young stepmother sees them and decides to give this free-spirited young girl a tongue lashing, but not quite the kind you'd expect (actually, if you've ever seen one of these movies, it is EXACTLY the kind you'd expect). This eventually leads to a three-way with the studly ranch hand. Then the son of the stepmother also shows up at the estate ("Giselle's" new stepbrother if you're keeping score). It turns out he and the ranch hand each swing both ways, so when "Giselle" walks in on them, suddenly we have a very different kind of "three-way". Then there's a massive gang rape scene where all three of the main protagonists are beaten and sexually assaulted by local yokels. And though it's thankfully kept off screen, there are sinister implications made about the father's sexual proclivities.

OK, right away this sounds like a hardcore porn movie, but that's actually not quite accurate. This is a Brazilian "pornchachada", a genre that is part softcore sex and part lurid Latin American soap opera. There is no actual penetration shown, and while the sexual couplings are ridiculously numerous, they're very abbreviated in length (whereas in porn they usually go on for 15 minutes or so) or they take place mostly offscreen (i.e. the homosexual scenes, for the most part). This leaves time not only for numerous sex scenes, but also for all kinds of other messed-up crap to happen. "Giselle", at one point, gets involved with a communist neighbor who comes to a bad end, and she herself gets kidnapped (it is actually very unusual to see any political stuff in pornchachadas because, interestingly, the military government at the time actually encouraged these type of sex films, but only as long as they avoided politics). "Giselle" also happens to drive by a mass lynching/burning where the local thugs who raped her earlier are getting their comeuppance. Eventually, the action moves from rural Brazil to the big city of Rio de Janiero where there are more ridiculous plot twists in store, each one more ridiculous than the last. There are, I guess, some SERIOUS messages here about the destruction of the family, but not being Brazilian, they largely eluded me.

This movie very much reminded me of one of 70's Italian-made Joe D'Amato/Laura Gemser "Black Emanuelle" films in that it contains numerous, fast-moving sex scenes sprinkled with liberal doses of appalling violence, but none of it seems to phase the lead character in the least. But I have to confess, I LIKE films like this because while they may not always be very sexy, they're far less BORING than what passes for sex movies today. The lead Alba Valeria is not in the class of Laura Gemser (or the even two most well-known female stars of 80's Brazilian pornchachada, Helena Ramos and Vaness Alves), but she is by far the most attractive person in the movie (although, I suppose if you're more "metrosexual", you might prefer her pretty-boy brother or the ranch hand, who has more hair on his chest than your average grizzly bear). The enjoyment of Valeria's perpetually nude body is probably marred somewhat by her blinding 70's tan-lines and the generally lousy transfer (this is only available from Greek VHS sources).

Oh yeah, and the movie also liberally "borrows" (often completely inappropriate) musical cues from The Beatles ("Yesterday" and "Let It Be") and the 60's song "If You're Going to San Francisco" (which will now forever remind me of two horses screwing). I would actually really like to see this legitimately released by one of your more adventurous international DVD labels, but they're going to have a lot of work to do. . .