The unwieldy triumvirate of, Ugo Liberatore/Paolo Heusch/Usmar Ismail have fashioned a rather unusual celluloid confection in Bali. Part-murder mystery, part-existential melodrama, part-metaphysical erotica, and part-exotic travelogue, that ultimately proves somewhat less exciting than the lurid promise of its exploitative parts! The bloody, Giallo-esque murder at the beginning engenders the rather clunky conceit of ostensible wife-slayer, Carlo (Umberto Orsini), and his heady Bali-bound tale of marital infidelity, Balinese hoodoo-voodoo, and the existential woes of the preternaturally sulky, blonde Adonis, Glenn (John Steiner), who, unsatisfied with his two dusky Asian wives, finds the satiety he desires among the pulchritudinous, sun-warmed bosom of Carlo's voluptuous wife, Daria, distractingly played in a curiously somnambulist fashion by the super-sexy, Antonelli, who does little more than mope, and look inordinately delicious in her snug black bikini! Which, as you might well imagine, is more than adequate compensation for her emotional inertia, and weirdly vapid stare!!!
Again, highlighting the cogent plot, or lack thereof, or even mentioning the spurious motivation of the undeveloped characters does, Ugo Liberatore's episodic film no good at all, it is, perhaps, far better to immerse the noggin with suitably robust libations, and then glory at the sun-slaked bounty of gleefully giddy nonsense herein! The story is pure bunkum, and is best enjoyed if taken with an enormous pinch of hallucinogenics, but, miraculously, all Bali's myriad faults do finally coalesce into a remarkably entertaining yarn!!?? Exhibit A) it is all wholly, and unrelentingly absurd and B) The location and photography of the impossibly beautiful island paradise of Bali is sensational; and C) (a jolly good C it is too!) maestro, Giorgio Gaslini's scintillating score is lushness personified, pouring sweet honey over the steamy proceedings like a sublime application of warm, slippery coconut oil across the magnificently burnished busts of Italian screen dream, Laura Antonelli!
