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Italy
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1972
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Starring
Lando Buzzanca
Laura Antonelli
Lionel Stander
Color
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109 Minutes
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Not Rated
Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC)
Severin Films
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
A
senator's pent-up sexual frustrations complicate
his bid for the presidency...
Though
today he is revered (and reviled) for his graphic
horror films, writer-director Lucio Fulci got
his start in comedy: he was a longtime assistant
to the comedy director Steno, for whom he wrote
many films, and a number of his first directorial
outings were vehicles for the then-popular duo
Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. With this
in mind, The Eroticist
makes perfect sense —
it continues the delirious stylistic inventiveness
of Perversion Story
and A
Lizard in a Woman's Skin, yet its bawdy humor
fits in perfectly with his origins in the cinema.
The nonsensical English title implies that the
film is a cash-in on William Friedkin's The
Exorcist, yet the film —
originally titled The Senator Likes Women!
— dates from a year
before the American blockbuster. Make no mistake
about it: this is as far removed as imaginable
for the horror genre, at least in terms of content,
although the sharp satirical barbs at the Catholic
Church and Italian politics fits in comfortably
with many of his better known works.
Comedic performer Lando
Buzzanca is ideal in the lead, conceived as a
satire of the prominent Italian politician Colombo
— great effort was made to make the actor resemble
the real life politician, and while the gag will
inevitably be lost on American audiences, one
can't help but admire Fulci for his fearless tenacity,
a quality that inevitably landed the film, and
its co-writer/director, in a great deal of hot
water. Fulci doesn't stop at lampooning conservative
politics, however; he has plenty of venom for
the Catholic Church, too. As embodied by loudmouth
American actor Lionel Stander (Cul
De Sac), the Church represents a fount
of misogyny and greed for power. The Stander character
instills these ethics into the painfully repressed
Buzzanca character, and as he begins to question
these beliefs and enjoy himself the Church finds
itself in a compromised situation that may result
in his being "canonized" (i.e., killed and embalmed
in wax!) and made into a Saint. The broad political/religious
satire may not seem unduly daring today, but it
was very strong stuff for its period and much
of the humor continues to play well.
As mentioned above, the film's
satirical elements go hand in hand with the deliberately
stylized approach. Beginning with Perversion
Story in 1968, Fulci's films began to be
more and more experimental — the surreal, Daliesque
dream sequences of A Lizard
in a Woman's Skin, for example, find their
way into this film's aesthetic. Buzzanca's mental
"blackouts" allow Fulci to play with this technique,
as in the scene in which the character imagines
an ancient piece of statuary coming to life, as
he envisions a soldier astride a beautiful naked
woman, or the scene in which he imagines the French
ambassador's wife (Anita Strindberg) completely
naked save for silver dollars over her nipples
and a wad of cash covering her genitals. The sight
gags aren't exactly subtle, but they have a Felliniesque
vibe that is instantly winning. Viewers only familiar
with the doom and gloom of the director's more
popular supernatural horror films will be taken
aback by the film's playful sense of humor.
In addition to Buzzanca, the
cast includes a number of familiar faces. Luscious
Laura Antonelli (Devil in
the Flesh) is ideal as the pious nun who
gives in to carnal desire after the Buzzanca character's
repressions, in essence, rub off on her. The scene
in which she presents herself to Buzzanca, naked
save for her nun's habit, playfully evokes the
nunsploitation genre that was beginning to take
off at the time, and it also attains a genuine
erotic vibe due to Antonelli's obvious charms.
The aforementioned Stander gives his usual boisterous
performance, and his gangster-like persona lends
menace to the overly ambitious representative
of the Vatican. A young Agostina Belli (Holocaust
2000) appears as one of the nuns, while
familiar Euro-Cult faces like Fedor Chaliapin
(Inferno),
Corrado Gaipa (The Godfather),
Arturo Dominici (Black
Sunday), and Renzo Palmer (The
Big Racket) put in welcome appearances. The
technical credits are generally excellent, with
Sergio D'Ofizzi's stylish cinematography warranting
special mention. The music score by Fred Bongusto
is less memorable but it hardly impedes the proceedings.
Though the film arguably loses some steam and
some of its sting in the final act, The
Eroticist still stands as one of Fulci's
most accomplished and entertaining works.
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Severin's release of The
Eroticist is a winner. The 1.85/16x9 transfer
looks terrific — the opening titles look a bit
washed out, but never fear: the film is sharp
and colorful for the remainder of its running
time. It's also completely uncut, retaining its
plentiful nudity. Audio options are limited to
the Italian track, though an English dub was also
prepared for its limited American and British
exposure. The track is in good shape, and the
removable English subtitles do a fine job of conveying
the film's sense of humor. Extras are limited
to a 42-minute featurette, A History of Censorship,
which interviews Buzzanca, D'Ofizzi and FX artist
Gianetto De Rossi. It's a terrific piece, with
all three interviewees remembering Fulci with
great fondness and candor; Buzzanca's amusing
recollection that Fulci fell out with Antonelli
because he couldn't resist touching her backside
during a nude scene is especially surprising (for
his part, Buzzanca is just grateful that he was
allowed to do so by virtue of the scene, though
he couldn't blame Fulci for giving in to temptation!).
Due to its longer than usual running time, the
featurette gives a particularly good insight into
the film's genesis, production and reception,
though very little of it deals with the scandal
it caused. 11/29/07
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