Il solco di pesca

If you have a screw seriously loose and for some reason have watched a lot of 1970's Italian sex comedies, you know that they basically fall into two categories: On one hand, there are the goofy, low-brow ones that make the old "Benny Hill Show" look all dry wit and erudition in comparison. Then there are the ones like this one that seem more arty and sophisticated, but are also often bizarre and pretentious and not necessarily all that funny.

This movie centers around a group of people that are both very Italian-Catholic and the same time oversexed and jaded European bourgeosis from the late "dolce vita" era. The main protagonist is a former priest who has become bored to the point of impotence by the easy availability of beautiful women (probably not a problem most viewers can really relate to). He misses the shame of the priesthood which made sex somehow more enjoyable, and this somehow leads to his strange fascination with photographing asses (the body part, not the animal). He gets involved with a sexy married woman (Martine Brochard), but he is more interested in her virginal maid (Gloria Guida)--or, to be more specific, in the maid's ass. The woman's husband meanwhile, a hilariously pretentious actor, discovers the affair. Strangely, he is not angry at his wife's infidelity but depressed that she was so indiscreet, and he too takes solace in his maid's ass.

With all this anal fixation, modern bourgeois angst, and perverted Catholicism, this movie kind of resembles Lucio Fulci's "The Eroticist", but that movie was a lot funnier and more entertaining. It is kind nice to see Gloria Guida in a more highbrow comedic rule (usually the kind that was reserved for more "sophisticated"actresses like Laura Antonelli), but it doesn't change much really--instead of enduring actors like Lino Banfi and the typically unfunny, sub-moronic comedy of Guida's usual low-brow movies for the privilege of seeing her naked again, I found myself enduring the more upscale actors and pseudo-sophisticated but equally unfunny humor of this movie for pretty much the same reason. High-brow or low-brow this boils down to yet another Italian sex comedy revolving around flashes Gloria Guida's delectable moon.