Anita

I came across this flick for one reason, I talked years ago to Christina Lindberg at a convention about Thriller, another 1973 flick famous in the horror genre. Signing my DVD and taking apic she suddenly started to talk about Anita from the same year. A complete different movie.

Here she's a seventeen nymphomaniac who is seeking help with a psycology student. And look, Stellan Skarsgard, who became a notorious thespian.

Pure exploitation this is, but even as it is a bit slow it still stands up due the story and message given. Made in the era of hardcore and it's a fact that all girls in the flick has to walk around naked, full frontal.

Due the underlaying message I had to see how it should end. So here and there a bit too slow but still worth seeing for the views back then and Christina in a complete different role and lets not dorget Skarsgard.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 3/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

The seventeen year-old outcast Anita (Christina Lindberg) has neither a good relationship with her parents and sister nor has friends. She is a nymphomaniac and has intercourse and BJ with most of the men in her little town regardless of their ages.

When she meets the psychology student Erik (Stellan Skarsgård), he brings her to live with his friends that are artists and she discloses her sexual experiences to him. Further, Erik discuss her problem with his adviser, he also realizes that he has fallen in love with her. But Anita needs an orgasm to cure first before staying with Erik.

"Anita" (1973) is a Sweden-French movie of exploitation about a seventeen year-old nymphomaniac forty years before the hype in the Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac". The story lines are the same, but the Danish director has detailed the plot along four hours running time. Stellan Skarsgård works in both movies listening to the nymphomaniac. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not Available.

People debate today whether there really is such a thing as nymphomania, or if it was just a term pinned on women who tried to lead a naturally healthy sex life back in much more repressive, Victorian times when such a thing was not permissible. One thing's for sure though , if this particular movie is based on a real story as it claims to be, this girl definitely had a serious problem. The girl in this movie (played by Cristina Lindberg) , will sleep with anybody, and I do mean ANYBODY. This turns her into a social outcast (because of course, nobody likes a beautiful girl who wants to have sex all the time). She's like a junkie in her compulsion, begging for the key to a friend's apartment so she can have quickies with unattractive businessmen she picks up at the train station. And when one kindly elderly guy tries to console her after an unsatisfying sexual encounter, she drops to her knees to give him the b.j. of his life.

All this is treated in a very serious, at times almost depressing manner, and Lindberg gives a very earnest performance. Since I doubt too many people then or now watched this movie out of concern for the social problem of nymphomania (more likely they wanted to know where they could find a girl like this), this move and Lindberg's performance may seem pretty campy. I have to say though I'd much rather see a movie like this that sets out to be somewhat serious and falls into camp than a movie that aims at camp and falls flat on its face. And though Lindberg will never be mentioned in the same breath as Greta Garbo, her overly seriously performance here is infinitely better than most modern-day "cult actresses" and "scream queens" camping and mugging their way through movies that they (very erroneously) consider beneath their talents.

In any case, campy or not, this movie definitely succeeds as exploitation thanks to Lindberg doffing her duds every five minutes or so. If you've never seen Cristina Lindberg, she's kind of like really sexy mutant or mythical beast--she has the face of an innocent teenage Swedish schoolgirl attached to the body of a voluptuous burlesque-era stripper (which is not at all to say that her appeal is limited to those who dig schoolgirls or burlesque strippers). Her most memorable scene here is where she and her goody-good twin sister are singing for their parents' friends and she turns the occasion into an impromptu full-monty striptease. And if you are a fan of Lindberg, or become one after this movie, also check her out in "Thriller--a Cruel Picture" (a favorite of Quentin Tarantino), her first film "Maid in Sweden", the German "schulmadchen report" films in which she was a regular, and the unbelievably depraved film "Depraved" (sadly unavailable in English). She's almost always worth the price of admission all by herself.

Christina Lindberg was already selling herself in nude pinups and movies several years before this movie. This movie is yet just another "social issue" excuse for selling Christina Lindberg and soft-core porn.

The movie pretends to explore the true life of a teenage sex-addict but in reality it's just an excuse for the nude and sexual content matter of the movie. There are of course the pompous analyses by her psychologist but they're simply a vehicle to deepen the chaotic and kinky erotic state of the character, played by Christina Lindberg.

Overall, the movie lacks depth, the acting is poor and 70's-cliche' in its settings and seems to have no real purpose other than to sensationalize popular Christina Lindberg in yet one more sexually exploitative movie.

The English title of this film is Anita (Swedish Nymphet). At the time of release of this film, in the United States, this was regarded as a duplicate title; by our standards at that time all Swedish girls were considered nymphomaniacs! That was NOT right for us to do so; I am the first to admit that. Rather it reflects the morality, or perceived morality, of that era. In some locations of the US a nymphomaniac was a woman who had sex twice a night with her husband; except perhaps for her honeymoon when such "immoral" behavior was tolerated. The Swedish women were much more advanced in human sexuality; it was the United States that had to catch up in this field. This movie is interesting in that it does portray a true Swedish nymphomaniac in a realistic fashion.

The movie explains in some detail that nymphomania is actually a comparatively rare condition; the psychology student mentions that nymphomania is improperly used to describe the activities of a woman who is simply enjoying a healthy sex life (when I was growing up the healthy sex life of a woman was considered to be having sex only when her husband was extremely desperate). Rather, nymphomania is a reflection of a very deep seated mental disorder. The question is whether or not Anita can be cured. Not deprived of all sexual desire but having the sexual desire that is properly balanced with L-O-V-E! The uncut movie was banned in the United Sates for some time. Though you could show breasts and butts by 1974 one found it quite difficult to legally show a woman's pubic area-this being about the same time that Larry Flynt was going to prison for doing just that. The uncut version of this film shows a little more of that area than what was allowed in the U.S. then. Christina Lindberg did a remarkable acting job in the private nude and sexual scenes. Today this film would be regarded as more or less normal fare; back then it was considered pornographic to a tremendous degree. Hence my high regards for her.