Contos Imorais

Art or pornography? Well, if it's pornography certainly no pornographer in cinema as come as close to art as Borowczyk does here. The five "Immoral Tales" that make up this movie deal exclusively with sex in its various forms with a great emphasis on female nudity. Borowczyk deals with an almost fetishistic relish on the woman's body while almost totally ignoring the man's. With the exception of the first story, 'The Tide', the others are all taken from history or the past. We get St. Therese, she who was raped rather than give up her virginity; Elisabeth Bathory, she who liked to bathe, so they say, in the blood of virgins and Lucrezia Borgia, who apparently liked it whatever way she could get it. We also get a mini version of what became "The Beast" whose engorged phallus is one of the very few 'male' organs we see.

Visually the film's palette changes to suit the story at hand and this is very much a sex movie for the intelligentsia, which isn't to say that the 'dirty mac' brigade won't have a field day as well. Of course, since "Immoral Tales" first appeared movies have become a lot more sexually explicit and yet I happy to say this is a movie that can still provoke outrage today...of one kind or another.

Overall, this film is quite boring. There are 4 unlinked segments, with only the third likely to keep you awake.

This is the familiar tale of Countess Elisabeth Bathory. Bathory is a historical character who apparently used to favour blood taken from naked virgins.This scenario is an exploitationers delight, and we get to see room loads of young girls running round in the buff.

But even so, this story seems to head nowhere, and much is left to your imagination.

Four erotic tales, three set as period pieces, the fourth (actually the first episode in the film) is set in the present day. A young man researches and puts into action a plot to trap his 16-year-old female cousin into giving him head by isolating her on a stretch of beach cut off by the ocean at high tide. The problems are several. The girl obviously doesn't need to be trapped and is more than willing to explore her own sexuality so the cousin's plot is completely unnecessary. She also demonstrates that she's a good swimmer, so she isn't really trapped. He also seems to be kind of short sighted since Borowczyk's cuts from close ups of the girl's face to her vagina demonstrate her curiosity at his limited objectives. Silly really.

'Therese Philosophe' concerns a pious girl punished for something by being locked in her bedroom "for three days", she seems intent on biding her time putting a cucumber to a non-digestive use while reading. This was the most disappointing episode for me because the only reason I tracked down and bought the DVD was because I saw the wonderful erotic potential of Charlotte Alexandra in "Une vraie jeune fille". She's wasted here.

'Erzsebet Bathory' is a sixteenth-century countess who travels to various villages setting up job fairs to recruit young girls into service in her household. Her pitch is that she pays more than the king. That her recruiters have to drag the young girls from their homes kicking and screaming might bear testament to the fact that none of her previous 'employees' were ever seen again. She also seems to have bizarre bathing habits.

'Lucrezia Borgia' chronicles Pope Alexander VI's pursuit of family values by swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool with his daughter Lucrezia and her brother Cesare. Everyone lives happily ever after (except that heretic Savonarola). This was actually the most erotic of the four, but I'd rather watch Debbie do anybody...or Miss Elizabeth Bennet for that matter!

The only thing noteworthy about this film is that supposedly it was the first porn flic to rise above the miasma onto the radar screens of the mainstream media. Actually I would have guessed that that distinction would have fallen to a Radly Metzger film, but my love of baseball statistics and trivia doesn't extend to porn films so I won't bother to look it up.

Walerian Borowczyk is best known for his 1975 sleaze flick 'The Beast', and with that film in mind; I don't think I was unjustified going into this one expecting some bizarre pornography. However, it turns out that isn't what this film is at all; it's actually 'erotica', which is unfortunately not so interesting. Sure there's plenty of hot female nudity, but it's all really slow and barely erotic in the slightest. As the title suggests, this film depicts 'tales' which are immoral; and there are four in total. The first is very simple but nicely put together. We follow a pair of cousins stuck on a beach together by the tide. The older and more sexually experienced of the pair sees it as an opportunity to teach the younger a thing or two. This story is not particularly impressive on the substance front; it's very short and not a lot happens, but it is really beautifully shot and anyone that appreciates good looking cinema will surely find something to like about it.

I figured the first tale would be just a taster since it is so short, but unfortunately things go downhill from there and the second tale is the worst of the four. It takes on a period setting and basically just follows a young woman locked in her bedroom. Again, the cinematography is nice (though none of the locations are anything like as good as the beach in tale one) but the tale itself drags on too long to approaching anything like what I would call 'erotica'. The film is slightly redeemed by tale number three; which is by far the best of the bunch. Elizabeth Bathory has featured in cinema a few times; though not often enough. This tale again is slow and beautiful but the story actually holds some interest and Paloma Picasso's perfect naked figure emerging from a bath is blood is likely to be the only thing I will go on to remember about this film. I figured that if the fourth tale could match the third then the film would be a success overall; but unfortunately it's a turgid affair and doesn't compliment the penultimate story as well as I'd hoped. Split into four we have one good story, one decent one and two weak ones...not enough to recommend the film for unfortunately.

Okay, okay... 1974. The Europeans have figured out that a world-wide audience exists for films that portray full-frontal nudity, regardless of storyline or context. Borowczyk has chosen four stories from four eras to flaunt some skin... the 1970s right back to the 1400s. He takes the cake, however, with the third segment, featuring Pablo's daughter Paloma Picasso: she plays a countess in the 1700s bent on preserving her youth and vitality by bathing in the blood of virgins. To get this far, we are treated to the most incredible series of visuals ever filmed! At least thirty young, beautiful, and (gasp!) very naked women are brought forward to shower, cavort, pray, play with each other, and perform some sort of ritual that leads to their demise. You will watch the whole film, but you will come away remembering only this third segment. All the nudity aside, credit Borowczyk and crew for doing a fine job technically and photographically on this film. Definitely worth seeing.