"Elite Devassa" ("Lustful Elite") almost convinces audiences with its seductive and dangerous story revolving a young chauffeur
(Thales Pan Chacon), hired to work for a wealthy family in São Paulo, who ends up involved in a lustful scenario when the three women from the
family desire him badly. The women are: the boss Marina (Selma Egrei); her sister Luisa (Patricia Scalvi), and Ana Paula (Nancy Galvão), the teen
daughter of Marina. As the man of the house is out of the house (if there is one), the chauffeur - who is a fine figure of a man - gets easily
seduced by all of them, barely realizing the dark secret of that family and what lies beneath all that sex, money and seduction. This pornochanchada
(Brazilian softcore, in a nutshell) threads a messy web of lies, mystery, sex and games of power where the poor man needs to find a way out.
This is one of those films that almost get a pass as it knows how to entertain, to create excitment on audiences and create a nice
sense of mystery. Ultimately, it's awfully disjointed in everything it tries to do - but I almost liked it as it does something highly unusual for the
genre and for that peculiarity it's slightly convincing.
Pornochanchada genre usually revolves on plenty of beautiful women seducing one or two males
with zero sex appeal but guys that have that roughed-up, alpha male quality that you sort of understand why the females are deeply attracted to them. The focus on this
one is the male and it's completely understandable why the driver is such an object of desire for all of them: Chacon was a very attractive man in every
possible way, a kind of figure you didn't much see on those films, and audiences can believe the appeal he has on them, besides the slight innocent air
of a country boy. Not only that but he was also a great actor - it's his film debut, and his voice was dubbed by another actor (why this was needed? His
voice was amazing). Gladly, his career went on with better things but we lost him too soon.
But why "Elite Devassa" is such a mess? It doesn't bring anything new to the genre or to the issue of exploring the false morality of upper classes
and family relations, the cliche stays strong on this one as each women get their hands on the chauffeur, or other men too (which includes a wild scene
of Aldine Muller with two guys); the background characters are awfully introduced to inject mystery in the family's story and it's difficult to find out
who they are, and why the appear and disappear in between sequences; and the presentation of everything is so weird, disjointed and cheap that one wonders
who's the director behind this.
The editing is an atrocity of sorts, and the inclusion of music is completely bizarre, where the audio makes abrupt stops
whenever a different shot comes, and if you're a Pink Floyd fan you'll never hear them the same way again (who can imagine a couple's foreplay with the
sound of "Breathe" in the background? It's not a sexy song!).
The sex sequences are the ones we pay attention, since that's what those films were
designed for, and they're well-made considering that period of Brazilian cinema. And it was a little fun to enjoy the enigma behind everything - not so
original but it can surprise less impressionable audiences. It's watchable for reasons, but it's destined to make you laugh for a long time due to its
ridiculous presentation. 5/10.
