Doppio rischio

I saw this for the first time recently n I still cannot fathom why I got pulled into seeing this. It's not a bad film but erotic dramas n thrillers ain't my cup of tea. Nevertheless, the lead actress' beautiful face kept me going. Suzanna Love was truly attractive n her brief nudity was an icing on the cake. Plot wise it is a bit far fetched but some scenes r pretty atmospheric. I really wanted to know how the husband survived n how he tracked her down. Also did she purposely migrate to Arizona so that she can bump into her lover.

It's hard to understand the negativity around Olivia. Yes it's completely mis-soled as a flesh and fear stalk and slash, it is in fact a sweet love story about a child escaping her damaged past with a bit of horror, social realism and domestic terror thrown in. Of course compared with Crimes Of Passion or Track 29 is lacks thy the fireworks but there are lots of little moments where the camera lingers on bridge lights or the parrots which Ulli Lommel adds to give it a strange stylish flourish. The cast (apart from Robert Walker) are universally great especially Suzanna Love in the title role, even the bit parts are played with utter sincerity and a fair amount of talent. White of the Eye is a similar film which has a much better reputation but Prozzie (Olivia or Double Jeopardy) has oodles to recommend it, in fact it's almost a precursor to David Lynch's Lost Highway without the surrealism. The only criticism, much like Olivia or Jenny, the film doesn't quite know what, or indeed who, it wants to be.

Variously known as, Olivia, A Taste of Sin, Prozzie and Double Jeopardy, this has as many twists and turns as it does titles. Eccentric ex art house director Ulli Lommel, writes, directs and even looks after camerawork here in a very strange film. Seemingly considered by the makers as 'Hitchcockian' there is only one decent scene of suspense and lots more that appear to have crept in from many and varied a genre. As so often with low budget fare the bonus is that you never quite know where things might go, but who expects the evil child, slasher, sexploitation movie to tell the story of the moving of London Bridge to Arizona?! Likeable, varied, ludicrous but involving with Suzanna Love helping enormously in a most convincing central role. Crazy, but cool.

"Olivia," also known under a variety of other salacious titles, such as "Prozzie" and "A Taste of Sin," follows Michael Grant, an American engineer in London who is helping dismantle the London Bridge. He meets and falls in love with Olivia, a woman haunted by her prostitute mother's murder, and who herself is in an abusive relationship. When Michael attempts to fight off Olivia's husband one night, it ends in tragedy. Four years later, in Lake Havasu, Arizona, where the London Bridge has been relocated, Michael encounters Olivia's apparent doppelgänger, a local tourism ambassador named Jenny, who claims she has never met him.

This offbeat entry in Ulli Lommel's early filmography is certainly an anomaly--it is not so much a horror film as it is a psychological thriller, though it is, as is the case with most of Lommel's work, preoccupied with themes of childhood trauma, particularly children's exposure to their parents' sex lives. The titular character, Olivia, is haunted by her mother's death, and begins slipping between identities, at times living out a secret life as a prostitute--just like her mom. The film toys with Olivia's psychological state, suggesting early on that she may be a Norman Bates-like character prone to dispatching men, but she remains no less sympathetically portrayed by Suzanna Love.

The second half of the film marks a major tonal shift, moving the setting from dreary London to the sunny Arizona desert, where Olivia--or at least someone who resembles her--resurfaces to haunt Michael. In a way, the extreme contrast between the two locales makes the film feel like two different movies, though this is perhaps part of the point. In any case, both sections of the film have their own stark atmospheres, and there are a number of haunting visuals throughout.

While the plot is at times rather ridiculous, there is still something oddly charming and entertaining about "Olivia." The film teeters between character study and full-blown psychological thriller, only occasionally dipping its toe into the horror pool. It is really more a meditation on childhood trauma than anything else, and it ultimately unravels into a perverse but engrossing love story-turned-tragedy. It is worthwhile for its visuals and at times otherworldly atmosphere, as well as its astute representation of a broken woman. 7/10.

Somehow one is reminded of Brian de Palmas film "Obsession" when watching this rarely seen German-American production from the early eighties. Ulli Lommel, once member of Rainer Werner Fassbinders highly intellectual actors group, turned to directing when he still under Fassbinders influence, but after his mentors untimely death he finally turned to more commercial topics. "Olivia" – or "A Taste of Sin", as it is apparently also known – at first sight looks like pure (S)Exploitation, but there's more to it. As Lommel says in the short interview that accompanies the films' German DVD release, the idea of the story came to his mind when he, while on a trip with his then-wife Suzanna Love (playing the main part), found out that the London Bridge was rebuild in Arizona. He used this as the outline for a sort of identity-switch trouble-personality killer-love story – combining two places with two personalities, both of which essentially having been one from the very beginning. True, the way the story unfolds is far from cinematic brilliance, but nonetheless it is quite entertaining; and in no one way is this modern fairytale the brutal splatter film that others would probably want it to be. There are some harsh effects, and a few violent scenes are included in the aforementioned DVD as bonus (yet only the material that was originally cut out is seen, which makes some of this bonus shorter than even a second!). But sex, murder and blood, while still important for the outline, are not the main attractions. Lommel intensely tries to give his film a psychological touch. Because of his limited skills in storytelling, he does not succeed. But still: Olivias rite of passage makes for entertaining viewing, especially is you like that particular touch of weirdness, absurdity and "otherness" that so many great underground pictures from the 70s carry.