Maladolescenza

Heading into Maladolescenza I was only aware that it was a flick that had young actors getting nekkid. And boy howdy did they! But besides the little bums, this flick was surprisingly well-made and had a plethora of messages to be taken from it.

The story revolves a young boy (Fabrizio) and girl (Lara) who met the past summer vacation and decided to continue their summer vacations together from here on out. Since the last vacation together they've both changed. Especially the young boy. Instead of innocence and play ruling the day, it's quite obvious his hormones are getting the better of him. This is all quite confusing to Lara, but since she has grown so fond of Fabrizio, she decides to "play" along. The story takes a different turn when another little girl (Silvia) shows up, which ends up making life even harder for poor Lara.

Firstly, Maladolescenza is an extremely thought-provoking movie. You have young teens stripping their clothes and doing some pretty heavy petting. For anyone who has a real clue, this isn't anything out of the norm. Ever watch Maury? Sheeit. Anyways, besides getting over the butt-hole in your face the story has other messages being presented. From parenting issues, to loss of innocence, loneliness, to delusion, and more than anything bullying.

Going through some of the comments on here I've seen people burst out saying it's pure child porn. In all honesty, it could be used for that. It's got little kids naked. Strap a heart-rate monitor on a pedophile and I'm sure that it'll explode. With that said, I also read that someone said it was "tame"....what the hell are you watching? How many flicks with adolescent nudity have you seen? Get with it.

Ignore and look past all the hype you've heard of it being called nothing but child porn and watch a film that deals with child innocence and bullying on levels that are rarely seen. Recommended for serious and open-minded film-goers.

Normally depicting the kind of cruelty that children are capable of is limited to works of fantasy such as William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Maladolescenza, a German-Italian production from 1977, however, deals with it in a way that is powerfully real – showing in graphic terms adolescent bullying and use of sex as an instrument of domination. Because of its depictions of children in sexual situations, however, it has been banned in many countries, most recently in Germany in 2006. While I'm not entirely clear about the purpose and intent of the director, I did not find it to be any more salacious than the films of Larry Clark and even more beautifully realized and honest. Please be advised, however, that Maladolescenza is a very disturbing film and is not recommended for those offended by cruelty to animals (in this case – a bird) or children presented in the nude and in threatening situations.

Set to an original score by Pippo Caruso based on medieval songs and dances, the film takes place in a brooding forest that holds the ruins of an ancient city. There are only three actors in the film and they deliver memorable performances. Two adolescents, Fabrizio (Martin Loeb) and Laura (Lara Wendel), live close to the edge of the forest and spend their summer holidays playing together as they have for many years. 12-year old Laura is in love with Fabrizio and teases him sexually but he responds only by taunting and frightening her. Like most bullies, however, he knows just when to let up in order to reassure his victim and give her a false sense of security. When the two discover the mysterious old city, Fabrizio declares himself to be king, but in order for Laura to be queen, she must first be able to win the cruel tests he has devised.

Among these are having a snake thrown on top of you as you lay on the ground and being chased by a snarling dog through the woods. Laura, like many willing victims, proclaims her trust in Fabrizio in spite of his sadism and his killing of her pet bird. When they at last make love together, however, it is done with tenderness and the film shows Fabrizio as good hearted when it suits his own purposes. When a new 13-year old girl, Sylvia (Eva Ionesco), joins the group on the invitation of two friends, things do not work to Laura's advantage. Sylvia, unlike Laura, is manipulative and cold and soon she and Fabrizio join forces to humiliate and frighten Laura, at one time compelling her to run through the woods while they shoot bows and arrows at her while wearing terrifying masks.

Realizing that Fabrizio and Sylvia have fallen for each other, Laura heartbreakingly begins to dress and act like Sylvia to win back Fabrizio's affection but without success. As the summer nears an end, Fabrizio is determined that Sylvia will never leave him alone and the result is a senseless tragedy that could have been easily averted. Although the setting is idyllic, under the skillful direction of Pier Murgia, Maladolescenza maintains a constant atmosphere of impending threat. While the story can be seen as a metaphor for the confusing currents of puberty, it can also be interpreted as symbolic of the loss of innocence and the misdirection of sexual energy into avenues of power and domination, perhaps an underlying theme in the history of the Third Reich.

The movie's fame makes people neglect its other contents. Questions about disturbing nudity mean closing eyes to avoid really disturbing questions and messages of the movie. Maladolescenza offers a dark, bleak, unpolished and sadly realistic picture of growing up, of the age that adults consider most beautiful years in whole life, either forgetting their youth, suppressing their memories the way people often do, or maybe indeed being so lucky to have a childhood of dreams.

And Maladolescenza is a dreamlike movie, a fairy tale that shows how easy can dreams become a nightmare, how close are fairy tales to horror. But it also confirms that never during whole human's life this extremes get so close as during school years.

Placing the movie in a inexpressibly beautiful nature is an ingenious decision. Such an ambient can hardly fail. "Mission", "Blue Lagoon", "Six Days Seven Nights", "Picnic at Hanging Rock"... but all these locations are rather exotic; Maladolescenza was filmed in the heart of Europe (though plot is carefully sited out of place and time) showing that beauty is all around if you just look for it. But it creates a contrast.

Apart from the first scene (a weird one, but a hint of Fabrizio's personality), the movie starts rather slowly, looking as a Saturday morning family movie. The idea to introduce only three characters appears to be effective - no one influences the kids, what makes the movie message even more disturbing: this shows what kids are, no one forces them to do what they do. Especially Fabrizio who lives in forest seems not to have much contact with rest of the world, his cruelty is immanent, essential. Sylvia is not much different, though she is a product of civilization: she not only joins Fabrizio's behaving, but induces more creative way of torture, gained in our modern "human" world. We can imagine her doing everything to be with most popular boy in the class, then with best sportsman in the school, later maybe with some pop-star...

Finally, Laura. The opposite character, played by Lara Wendel who came from nowhere. While Ionesco was already a famous photo model - her acting can be annoyingly stilted, but fits into Sylvia's character - and Loeb played main role in "Mes petites amoreuses", Lara is almost a newbie in movies as Laura is a newbie in teen-adulthood. But unlike Sylvia she is shy, obeys parent's orders (being home on time) and they trust her (letting her be away from home whole day). A perfect victim for bullying.

So this movie makes one of the best analyzes of bullying ever made on screen. A surprise for 70's, because the amount of this problem was recognized recently. Some movies dealt with bullying but hardly ever in such a pure form until Larry Clark's "Kids"; his "Bully", though using that word, deals with consequences of bullying in young adults (who still keep the same interpersonal relations). Only Scandinavians (who, at least in movies, understand children as if they had invented them) dare to handle it either as sub-plots or even main plots (Rubber Tarzan, Det skaldede spogelse, Saning eller konsekvens...). In other cinematographies victims of bullying are usually characters made to laugh at, as if they deserved their fate ("Back to Future" where Marty reverses the situation, what is unbelievable for real victim)..

Laura needs Fabrizio. She is lonely. This lonely forest is so uninhabited that she has no other peers. She grew up with Fabrizio and tolerates the changes he is going through. Believing it is only a passing period she accepts her role afraid she would be rejected otherwise. And here we see the difference between bullying and torturing or simple violence: Laura isn't running away or avoiding perpetrators (e.g. "Iluzija", "Bluebird", "Före stormen"), she constantly returns day after day hoping that things will become as they were before. But they never do. This obedience of the victim feeds bully's strength, his feeling of power grows.

Sexuality in the movie is not an expression of love (as some comments say) but it is also not a rape (as some others suggest). It is just the way victim is proving her loyalty and obedience.. In the beginning of the movie there is curiosity, peeking normal for the age, but once when bully-victim relation is established it affects the sexuality as well. Sylvia, who knows the real life better than Fabrizio and Laura, noticed or was told already that people (mostly females) can control others (mostly males) by proper use of sex. Fabrizio fell in trap, and Sylvia mixing the developing adolescent/adult sexuality and still existing child cruelty starts an avalanche that leads to tragedy.

For Laura this is not just one bad summer. Remember how she was happy to meet Fabrizio. She doesn't ever mention and never misses anything from outer world. Probably she hasn't good experiences there either, it's easy to assume she's been bullied in school too – victims are special type of children and bullies will always recognize them. And now, the only safe and beautiful place became equal or even worse than her everyday world. The only true and gentle friend became equal or worse than the others. It's not hard to trace this fate to psychic disorders or suicides, so frequent in teenage years.

People who are easily offended, whose attitudes don't allow them to watch certain content, shouldn't give a try to this movie. But they still shouldn't blame it for being shallow, worthless, just because of things they've heard about it. The best way of checking is, certainly, watching, and it could be more useful for people who work with children (teachers, psychologists, social workers, counselors) and for victims of bullying, to understand why they couldn't help themselves... though a question why no one else didn't help (them) always stays unanswered.

I own this movie & am proud of it. I live in the good old USA and had to buy my copy in Europe, so i could get it uncut, the full 93 min version. This movie may be very controversial, but anybody who can't see past the nudity is very closed minded. This movie is a brilliant piece of art. The forest alone, is worth a million words, not to menchine the story. I'm 19, and had a difficult upbringing, especially in junior high, but this movie nails it, the emotions and feelings that i had as a preteen and young teen. I praise this movie for exploring this difficult transition from childhood to adulthood. Anybody who would call this movie pornography, is ignorant, as far as i'm concerned, at most maybe you could argue that it is mild erotica, but even that is a stretch. When are people going to realize that nudity does not equal pornography, and love making does not always equal sex. Anyway, i have to put in my vote as one of the best coming of age movies that i have ever seen, a 9/10. I have seen a lot of movies, spending a lot of my winters watching movie after movie, I'm a huge movie buff, and through my experience i have found that European movies tend to be a lot more honest about feelings, love, and life in general, then do US movies, where ratings are based on sex and violence. This movie remains a favorite of mine to this day on how brutally honest it protrays this adolescent transition. A must see for anyone who loves art or who is struggling through adolescence.

Having grown up in Amsterdam,Holland, where our liberal ideas are pretty much the norm, I have to say that I cannot understand why this movie caused so many problems when it came out! Sure, it is a movie of the 70's when peace and love were still there amongst a lot of old and younger people in Holland. I saw the film on a good DVD version last year and thought it was a love story about youth, rite of passage and growing up. The music in the background was pretty dire and some of the scenes were a bit dull (what was the snake scene all about??) but generally it wasn't a bad film. If some people get wound up about preteen nudity, then all I can say is they should get a life!!