La possédée

...I cannot say a lot about the film as the version I have is in its original language with no subtitles. That is a shame because Christina's character Lena had a lot of dialogue and it would have been interesting to hear what she had to say. Anyway, Christina plays a young girl who after a row with her boyfriend hitchhikes across the countryside in Sweden, meets up with a couple of nudist, and spends some time at their log cabin. Her boyfriend eventually finds her and takes her back to the city where unbeknown to him she continues an affair with a more older and perverted man.

Exponerad is quite surreal and is told in flashbacks and dreamlike sequences. There is a lot of nudity; Christina spends most of her time in various states of undress and you get a bondage scene and an attempted rape on our beautiful heroine too. I notice that IMDb has a tag line for this film that states that it was banned in 36 countries. After watching this film I have to add that if that statement is true then I cannot see why. There is nothing too explicit on show to warrant that.

So, If you are a Christina Lindberg fan, like me, then seek out this film. You will not be disappointed. For anyone else or anybody expecting an exploitation classic along the lines of 'Thriller: a Cruel Picture'. I would have to say that you should move along. There is nothing of any interest for you here.

17-year-old Lena (Christine Lindberg) is prone to flights of fancy, most of which involve her being sexually abused or killed. Torn between two lovers, boyfriend Jan and hedonistic pig Helge (who is blackmailing her with naked photos), Lena decides to run away, but after a few days on the road, during which she imagines herself raped, murdered and killed in a car crash, she returns home to confront her problems, all of which might only be inside her head anyway.

The subtitles for my copy of Exponerad lagged a couple of minutes behind the film, meaning that I found matters really hard to follow—not that I care that much, because the story was dreadfully dull from what I could gather and isn't what drew me to the film in the first place. No, I sought this one out for the same reason that I imagine most men do: the presence of beautiful exploitation sexpot Lindberg, who being a liberal-minded Swede in the early 70s, frequently disrobes and indulges in soft-core hanky-panky for the pleasure of the viewer.

Apart from the regular nudity from the star, there isn't much else to recommend about Exponerad: Lena's violent daydreams are fairly jarring I suppose, and certainly make the viewer wonder what the hell is going, as does a trip to the cinema in which we are treated to several minutes of a Johnny Weismuller Tarzan classic, but everything pales in comparison to the other Lindberg films I have seen so far (my other Lindberg viewings being revenge flick Thriller: A Cruel picture and pinku Journey To Japan).

Without Christina, this would probably only be a 3/10 tops; with her, It's got to be worth a 5.

Exposed (1971)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Christina Lindberg fans can rejoice because another one of her films has been released to DVD. In this film she plays a 17-year-old girl who gets taken advantage of by an older man. He took some nude photos of her and is now blackmailing her, which doesn't sit well with a mama's boy that she's currently dating. There are about two other plot lines that could be brought up but, as the director states in the featurette, the story really isn't that important when you've got the beautiful Lindberg running around nude for 60% of the running time. The movie actually manages to be more than just your typical sexploitation film because the story itself isn't too bad and we get some decent performances. The entire subplot of Lindberg's character imagining bad things happening to her might have been a homage to Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR but it works. These fantasy sequences range from her being raped, to her death with some nudist and various others. Lindberg turns in a good, if certainly not great performance, which is more than enough. She certainly makes us care for her character even though we really don't learn too much about her. The biggest issue with this film and many other sexploitation movies is that there's just not enough going on for a running time over seventy-five minutes. Clocking in at 91-minutes this film runs out of steam towards the final half-hour and there's just way too much added stuff. There's a five-minute sequence, which shows us the movie TARZAN TRIUMPHS but it's not just a clip but an entire five-minute sequence! The print has the Swedish subtitles as well, which was strange to see and I'm curious if Warner knows about it. There are other sequences that could have used some editing as well. With that said, most people are coming to this film to see Lindberg and you get plenty to look out, which is good enough for the film to work.

In case you're new to the wicked world of Euro-exploitation: Christina Lindberg is a Swedish goddess who, with her innocent and cherubic face yet curvaceous and perfect body, formed the ideal lead girl for naughty nude flicks during the early 70s. Lindberg became a world-famous cult heroine thanks to the controversial "Thriller: A Cruel Picture" (aka "They Call Her One-Eye). Oddly enough, I personally found this acclaimed classic vastly overrated and disappointing, and ever since then I learned to keep my expectations for Lindberg movies very low.

Whenever she stars in a film, there is nudity to admire, for sure, but everything else - including the plot - is probably mediocre at best. This reasoning helped me through "Exposed" as well! It's one her first appearances, and at age 20-21 she looks indescribably astounding. The girl's an angel, period. And yes, shallow as it may sound, she's naked for approximately two-thirds of the film's running time and that is solely what make it worth the effort.

The story has potential, but it rapidly becomes obvious that it'll lead nowhere. While her parents are away on holidays, 17-year-old Lena is bouncing back and forth between two lovers. Jan is nerdy and good-hearted, but he lives with his dominant and nosy mother. Helge is pure scum who forces Lena to sleep with his friends and blackmails her with nude pictures. Naturally, she's drawn to the latter the most. The first half hour of "Exposed" features the most entertaining sequences, since our girl tries to escape from both men by hitching a ride with a nudist hippie-couple. Besides, during the trip we also discover that Lena is a drama queen with an overly vivid imagination, so none of her adventures may be real after all.

This movie is an uneasy mix of carefree hedonistic sixties sexy fun and a darker, more edgy sexuality and is all the better for that. In a way the gorgeous Christina Lindberg also epitomises this duality, is she a wide eyed innocent schoolgirl or someone craving some action? Well, I suppose the fact she spends most of the film with hardly any clothes partly answers that question but here even she seems unable to decide. Indeed for much of the movie we slip fantasy and reality and between her safe home loving, sweater wearing boyfriend to the more exciting older guy who plays with drugs and SM. Always good to watch with some interesting twists and turns and a glorious semi consensual bondage scene to round things off.