Correccional de mujeres

Emilio Vieyra is somewhat famous for being Argentina's only real horror director with a reputation based on a series of four or five goofy horror-sex movies that he churned out in the late 60's like "The Curious Dr. Humpp" (aka "La Venganza de Sexo"), all of which have been to some degree retitled or re-edited in their English language versions. Well, it turns out he also seems to have directed the only Argentinean "Women in Prison" movie (or WIP), although it was never really released outside of Argentina and is currently available only in Spanish and on videotape.

As WIP films go, this is much less graphic than the practically hardcore Brazilian and Italian-Brazilian co-productions they were making to the north, nor is it nearly as sick as the Jess Franco films like "Greta, the Wicked Warden", which were supposedly set in Latin America, but were filmed in Europe. It's kind of like a Corman-Filipino WIP film, but without a lot of political content (having been made not long after the fall of the military dictatorship). The characters introduced at the beginning include a "drugstore cowgirl", a stripper, a pick-pocket, and the main character, a gangster moll whose boyfriend was assassinated while they were in bed together. None of the girls is especially attractive in the face, but they all have nice, voluptuous bodies.

The movie kind of rushes through the "inspection" scene and the shower scene, skips over the usual "new fish" initiation scenes, and only has some perfunctory inmate-on-inmate violent scenes before they get to the violent bust-out barely a half hour into it. There really isn't anything new here for WIP fans except you get Argentinean women (one of whom, of course, is black) of the Isabel Sarli mode rather than Pam Grier, Margaret Markov, etc. It's not nearly as good as Vierya's lovable 60's horror movies, but WIP completists won't want to miss it (and you even get a chance to practice your Spanish).

"Correccional de mujeres" has many well delivered moments of pure rawness and this is one of the biggest achievements of Vieyra's vision. In Argentina many filmmakers tend to underestimate its audience and give them easy to process movies. Correccional has more interesting social commentary than any art house pieces of any Argentinean director released in the eighties.

Vieyra's sexy piece is a Crime movie who follows the typical patterns of the genre, its main character is trying to prove her innocence while uncovering a criminal group that uses the women of the prison as 'employees'. From such a simple premise Vieyra give us daring sexy sequences with good special effects for the standards of a South-American production. The inexpert Edda Bustamante leads the cast but her inexperience is balanced with the presence of greats like Julio de Grazia and other familiar faces. But what makes Correccional a gem is the feminine cast of good looking girls in that aspect Bustamante grace the screen with more than obvious merits.

Maybe one of the reasons people doesn't like Correccional de mujeres is the lack of humorous moments, yet there are a couple of funny scenes this is a dark story of corruption, that pretends to be serious. There's a notorious lack of true genre-movies in Argentina. The intentions in Correcional are good but the execution couldn't fit the viewer's expectations at the time this movie was released, they believe it too silly and didn't give Correccional a chance, except the sexploitation aficionados. The abundance of porn and erotic theaters in Buenos Aires in the eighties helped Correccional find its audience.

Correccional de Mujeres is the kind of film only a few appreciate and judge under its true merits. Some people believe that a movie must tell some anguish story from the childhood of its director if a certain production doesn't fit that mold is not a movie, it's crap. On the other side there's people who likes to have a good time watching a flick, have a laugh or get mad but ultimately understand that a cinematographic story is a product, a product that many hands helped to create, not always the view of one author.

I can´t say that "Correccional de mujeres" is a good movie (because it isn´t), but I like the prison type ones, so I gave it a look (twice). The film features (I think) the only Argentinian B-class movie director ever, Emilio Vieyra. But, even being a bad movie, Edda Bustamante acts in it so, does it worth a look or not, eh?. I think that yes. If you are not convinced remember that this film & Edda´s body has inspired the Argentinian group Attaque 77 that made a tribute for her in their song "Caminando por el microcentro". What do you tell me about that, eh?.